Life of the Tengu
by Mephiles666
Summary: The White Wolf Tengu guard Youkai Mountain viciously, driving off anyone who intrudes on it. Kinda makes you wonder what they do when enemies are not around, right? Depends upon the tengu. Momiji, for one, plays Dai Shōgi. Here is life from the eyes of one of its other guards. OC warning. Part of the Danmakuverse
1. Chapter 1

Youkai Mountain; the land of illusions' largest mountain and volcano.

A rocky land-form covered by a large area of forest presenting a wide continuous surface at its foot, with waterfalls and rivers flowing from the lakes at the mountain top. Once a highly active volcano in the past, but has long been dormant if not extinct as it has been centuries since it last erupted. It has served as the home of our people and neighbors for longer than our history has existed.

While formerly ruled by the "Elder Demons" known as the Oni, with us and our Kappa allies as their subordinates, the mountain's control was given up when Hakurei Border was erected, cutting Gensokyo off from the rest of Japan.

The Oni, becoming bored with the lack of progressive physical activity presented to them and tired of being killed off by wittier enemies, eventually left the mountain. We and the kappa took over the remains of the society and built upon it.

Ever since, we were able to develop better relations with our neighbor species and were able to create a more advanced culture. The inhabitants lead peaceful lives.

It is partially thanks to our preparedness. We have defensive measures prepared in case life was to turn disastrous. The mountain is closed off from outsiders; those of which who attempt to climb the mountain are chased out relentlessly by our patrols.

I am a member of a group incorporated in one of said measures. We, the Hakurou Tengu, are the Mountain's defense force that is responsible for keeping out intruders.

Speaking of which, someone's coming.

"Sasuke, are you cleaning your sword while on duty?" I hear from my left. The individual is probably a hundred feet away. I turn to see one of my colleagues, Momiji Inubashiri. Like all Hakurou Tengu in our age group, she has light silver hair. Today she is wearing a white, long-sleeved shirt, and a large black skirt with red flame like designs reaching up from the bottom of the skirt plus a white layer below her skirt.

How could I ever forget Momiji? Not only is she the most powerful clairvoyant among the Tengu, which in it of itself is a rare gift among our people, she was also the one who made me swallow my pride.

As a pup, I had difficulty getting to know others. This made me a sort of a social outcast. No, it wasn't the fault of the others; I just did not put much effort into it. I did get along with the occasional nerd. While I did play with other pups, I found that I usually would rather be doing...more practical stuff by myself.

Or something to that degree. To be honest, I'm not sure what the circumstances were anymore.

The point was that I was less sociable with the other hakurou my age and focused more on things like physical and mental training.

As a result, I was always among the betters of my age group ever since I first started as a guard. I was more effective in combat situations than just about everyone else in my year, even better than many who were more experienced than me. Being precise and strict in one's physical and mental conditioning for over three centuries (not including the time after employment into the Mountain Defense) does that to some people.

I thought I was peerless in capability. My strength was significantly above average for a male of our kind; my speed only outclassed by Shinjiro, Supīdo and several of the Karasu Tengu; and I was only surpassed in physical endurance by a mentally deranged Tengu archer from the opposite side of the city.

My actual sword play skills, however, are unknown to me in terms of level. I'd estimate them being somewhere between average and the grand-master's level.

This success in physical conditioning resulted in me becoming a member of the exceptionally capable hakurou. Few have ever defeated me in fights and this bred arrogance.

At this time, Momiji was already popular for her clairvoyance. In fact, it was rumored that she used this ability to see the males of our society naked. If that is the case, it may explain why she stares at our nether regions every so often. While I care little about whether she looks at us naked, this has made several of my conversations with her awkward. I remember when she was first learning how to control it when I was nearby. One reason I remember it is because it was slightly humorous in hindsight.

_"H-how can you walk straight with something that huge between your legs!?"_ she had asked me at the time. She looked terrified.

At first, all I did was stare at her quizzically and was oblivious to what she was talking about.

_"Never mind!"_ she said before I could figure out what she was talking about or even ask. She ran off with pink in her cheeks.

...

Back to the topic; Momiji was considered among average in combat ability among the hakurou, maybe above. During a sword fighting tournament, I was winning every fight, even against veterans (although some of them were extremely difficult, mind you). But when I dueled Momiji, she exploited a weakness in my fighting style. My poor use of my shield allowed her to strike me down, it was her victory.

Everyone was shocked tremendously; I even heard that the news was so great that one of the Karasu Tengu decided to tell the Hakurei Shrine Maiden about it.

Of course, being a known weakling only means you'll have a greater impact when you do something incredible as you are less likely to be expected to do so. In fact, before Gensokyo's currently strongest youkai had existed, I met a fairy living on the island in the middle of the misty lake whose appearance had an uncanny similarity to said youkai.

In fact, aside from one being a fairy and the other not being a fairy, their spiritual presences would be virtually identical. If something as weak as a fairy could hope to become something as powerful as the plant youkai, Momiji defeating me once in a fight seems a lot more believable.

When that is considered, everyone's shock including my own is hardly validated.

Many of my colleagues question if I lost due to her feminine features. Perhaps that was partially the case but I would like to think myself a more rational individual than to be taken advantage of in such a way. Especially given the fact I was tired and she wasn't. However, I wouldn't blame them for thinking that I lost because of her femininity given her extremely healthy body (perhaps the reason she isn't above average in combat ability is because her exceptionally large bust acts as an inhibitor).

I still won the tournament, but I had made an effort not to think of myself as being peerless since my defeat. Unsurprisingly, such thinking improved my combative efficiency. I'm still unable to properly use a shield though.

Momiji had also increased in popularity since then.

"No," I answer Momiji's question, "I'm not cleaning my sword on duty. I'm sharpening it."

"Couldn't you have done it while off duty?"

"I was, it was extremely dull," I answer. I figured that if by the off chance someone trespasses on to our territory while I am busy sharpening said sword, one of the other equally or more determine guards will be able to pick up my slack.

"Ah, if you had the leisure time, I was going to ask if you wanted to play Dai Shōgi with me."

Oh yes, Dai Shōgi; another thing Momiji's famous for. Last I recall, Momiji is Gensokyo's Dai Shōgi champion. This wouldn't be so much of a problem if she could find an actual rival for herself. The other Tengu who play Dai Shōgi usually can't match her.

While I am a good Dai Shōgi player, Momiji outclasses me. Because she is so skilled, none of the other Tengu are willing to waste their time in playing against her. Among those Tengu who stand a chance (an astronomically small one at that) against her, I'm the only one who stomachs playing against her so many times since I look at the opportunity as one to sharpen my mind.

And while I am among the top ten Tengu in playing Dai Shōgi (tied for 10th actually), Momiji and I are separated by a canyon when it comes to skill. A canyon filled with older and more experienced Tengu Dai Shōgi players...and Kappa.

While I wouldn't comment on their overall intelligence, the geniuses seem to have a better knack for playing against the Dai Shōgi champion than the Tengu, even if she is still better than them.

"I'd accept your offer, but I'd expect you'd want an opponent who actually stands a chance against you," I answer her.

"All of the Kappa are busy, and I'll have another guard shift in a few hours so I can't go visit one of the other Tengu who are able to play at my level since they're in the city."

I've seen you play against those other Tengu, Momiji. NO ONE is at your level when it comes to Dai Shōgi.

"If I can get some time off overlapping your break, I'll welcome the mental exercise. But don't expect an interesting fight."

"What?"

"I'm saying since it's impossible to win against you and that you should not expect me to keep it interesting."

In hindsight, her reaction was one I should have expected. She was upset by my comment. Ah yes, my lack of social ability, once again you rear your ugly head to me. To this I had to immediately react.

"I'm kidding; I have this new awesome technique that will probably defeat you." It was a blatant lie. This calmed her down, but judging from her face, she saw right through it.

Does this mean I have to come up with an actual technique to throw her off just to prove her wrong and prove myself right?

"Fine, but you better not be lying!"

Yep, it does.

"Hello, you two!"

The two of us looked up to see a familiar woman. She had red eyes and semi-long black hair. She was wearing a white blouse, a black short skirt, and a Tokin. She was also carrying a journal of some sort. While it is her scent that indicates that she is a Tengu; her black, feathered wings are what serve as a good indication of her nature as one of the Karasu.

Aya Shameimaru.

To be honest, even though she's more popular than Momiji, I actually know less about her. The main reason she is popular is because out of all reporters in the newspaper business, she is supposedly the best in getting pictures.

Being a Karasu Tengu, I suspect that chances are her flight speed cannot be surpassed by anyone in Gensokyo aside from other Karasu Tengu. However, she would have to not only be exceptionally fast but also exceptionally dexterous and durable in order to outclass other reporter Tengu in such a feat. This is probably why her body is also healthy for a female Tengu.

But if she is so good at gathering pictures, why isn't her newspaper considered good? I honestly don't know but the rumors are that she lacks truth to her articles. While 90% of the truth is already conveyed in her photos, a lot of the remaining information she has to speculate.

Another thing Aya is popular for is being the first and only Karasu Tengu to legitimately defeat a top class Hakurou Tengu in a fight. It was someone I defeated in the tournament, but when Aya fought him, he went down much faster than when I fought him. That said, I do not want to make enemies with Shameimaru.

As she began to talk to Momiji, I finished sharpening my sword. Sheathing the scimitar, I stand up from the rock I was sitting on and raise my hands to my chest's level. If I ignore my fellow Tengu talking about whatever it is that women talk about, I can keep half my mind focused on keeping watch. The other half of my mind will be used to practice magic.

Yes, magic. The arcane art used to manipulate those vague energies around us.

If I recall correctly, the only beings that can use actual magic are humans, Tengu, animals, beasts, and magicians. Of course, given the ever changing nature of life in Gensokyo, I'm sure that could change (the Oni used something similar to what Monks used, I think). I do not neglect training because there may be some creature immune to physical strikes that wants me dead.

Like vengeful spirits who somehow escape Hell, scariest things in existence.

Alternatively, I might fight an enemy who is immune to the wind or even feeds off it. Since we Tengu are easily one with the wind, such an enemy would be a walking disaster to us if we did not focus practicing on other qualities of ours. While we Tengu may use magic to augment our already existing wind based abilities, we need not bother learning actual wind magic.

Speaking of magic, while Oni were weak against boiled soybeans and repelled by sardine heads and holly branches, the only way one could combat them without those items without being an already powerful youkai was using a specific classification of Black Magic.

Anyone who knew, which is probably a lot, can guess when and why I learned said class of Black Magic.

Many of the Oni were hypocrites. They knowingly tried to get humans to challenge them to physical contests while knowing full well that nothing (no youkai, let alone humans) were as strong as them. Yet when a human challenged an Oni to a contest of legitimate skill, or a contest of the mind, many of those Oni whined and complained about how humans were underhanded. Additionally, when a human used tactics to fight an Oni, they called the humans cowardly and cheaters.

But why shouldn't humans resort to trickery? Those who didn't would find their villages dwindling in numbers as the Oni kidnapped them.

And for what? All sorts of things. Some Oni kept humans as pets. Some Oni ate the humans they kidnapped. And some Oni used the humans they kidnapped for sexual gratification. It did not end there.

Regardless of the reasons, humans did not live long or leave behind offspring when they were taken into Oni society unless they had a child before they were abducted (which resulted in the child being parent-less).

And those Oni had the audacity to complain when a human killed one of their kind? The Oni I killed sure did. Neither was it anyone special among the Oni society aside from being among its more sadistic and cruel individuals.

While it is true that my actions were acknowledged (although none of the Oni knew it was me who did it) and that said actions may have helped discourage the remaining Oni from staying on youkai mountain, given how many of the other Oni already thought life was boring in Gensokyo and how many already wanted to leave because everyone was wising up to their methods, my actions were probably a waste and would have not mattered in the end. Well, aside from the human who was suffering direct victimization from the Oni I killed.

And no, I did not just swoop in and slay him. While we Tengu are powerful enough that we wield the tactical value equivalent to that of an Oni, a Tengu usually cannot fight alone against an Oni on equal terms in a head on fight. That was the fight where I used black magic against an Oni.

I come back from my thoughts to see Momiji and Aya arguing about something. It is typical of that duo that they never can get along.

We are brought up to be polite to all non-Tengu creatures. Even when we are in the process of brutally killing someone, we are to retain politeness to a degree. However, our policy is similar to how other species act towards each other when dealing with other Tengu.

Suddenly, I see that the two of them were looking at me as if they wanted me to settle their dispute. I could have sworn that they said something that I should have heard.

I was stuck between a rock and a hard place. If I side with one, I may truly hurt the feelings of the other. If I truly hurt the feelings of either woman, I am at risk.

Thinking of this long term, I may decide that, in the unlikeliness that racial barrier for jobs is demolished, that I'll want a job in something aside from being a guard.

If I upset either one of them, my reputation will be damaged in some way.

There is also the possibility that I might develop legitimate feelings for one or the other aside from hormonal lust.

Logically, I'd want to be on good terms with one or the other.

Finally, there is the fact that I wasn't paying attention to their argument to begin with.

"What's the problem, ladies?"

Before either of them could answer, something caught my ears. Something far away. A clicking sound.

"Get down!" Before I finished the sentence, the attack was already instigated.

Aya and Momiji both narrowly dodged something that was fast and a blur, something that possibly moved faster than a Karasu Tengu. Given its size, it was probably a bullet.

There was only one Tengu who used such a weapon here on Youkai Mountain.

"Aya! What the Hell did you do! They're shooting at us!" Momiji yelled.

"Don't blame me, bitch! I didn't do anything! I'm just my ordinary, honest self!" Aya countered. The attacker was kind enough to let us know its intention.

"Aya! You stole my boyfriend from me, you bitch!" Judging from the scent, voice, and sentence, it's a Tengu girl. It was possibly that infamous sniper from the east side of the city.

"No, he dumped you because he was shallow," Aya said, seeming to have a grasp of the situation.

"Don't you dare lie!" Another shot rang out. Since Aya and Momiji were separated by the first shot, this one could only go for one individual. Aya being forced to dodge another shot indicated that the newcomer's actions spoke her earlier words, she wanted Aya dead.

"I would not waste my time on getting myself a man when I have more important things to do. If I try dating now, my career would take a dive and never recover."

I'd suspect as much from Ms. Shameimaru. Examining the top women in career positions, those who are married usually have congested home lives. It came up in a conversation I had with a friend of mine, a Hanataka Tengu. Collecting information for a Dai Tengu, our superiors in the political system, he spoke to a murder of women.

One of the women had graduated at the top of her class, served as the head of the company their murder had running and had ambitious goals for herself. However, her husband had recently gotten a specialized job that required him to be on the opposite side of Gensokyo. Her hopes for a career were ruined. When my friend listened to this woman (whose grade he knew would earn her much wealth and prestige), he couldn't help but think that she made a mistake. And he didn't get started on the woes of rearing fledglings.

But if the woman wants to ever get married eventually, it's not like they can simply put it off until later. When Tengu reach 4 centuries of age, they can marry with parental consent. And not long after, they can marry without parental consent given they are living in their own homes. With our life long monogamous pairings starting so soon, you come across the problem that all the "good" men or women are taken by the time you do decide to get married. For this and the fact that reproductive success requires at least a certain amount of youth, Tengu are strongly encouraged to marry before 6 centuries of age by their friends and family.

It doesn't help when all marriages must be looked over and accepted by Lord Tenma because even when rarely does Lord Tenma ever reject marriages, it still takes time. Fortunately, some indecisive individuals have their lives saved when Lord Tenma decrees who they are to marry.

"Besides, if I did want a man, I'd sooner date one of my employees since they're far sexier and better husband material than that idiot who'd just throw me away the moment the better looking woman appeared."

Touché, Ms. Shameimaru.

"Oh that is it! You are dead!" the sniper girl shouted as she opened fire again. I continued standing guard, ignoring the fight between the two women. Momiji watched the fight take place.

"Oh!" I hear Momiji exclaim.

"What is it?" I ask her.

"One of the sniper's bullets hit Hatate in the knee."

Momiji and I would play Dai Shōgi the moment I was on break. I played my best and she beat me in eight turns.

**Author's comments:**

I wrote this chapter with the intention of making it a one-shot. However, since my proof reader (Captain Vulcan; go read his work, it's awesome) said it makes a great opening and would like to see more, and the fact that I might continue this at a later date anyways, I decided that this won't be a one shot. I, however, will not make any promises since my Touhou/Index crossover takes priority. Regardless, I hope you enjoyed this short work.

I own Sasuke Ito and no one else. I forgot who conceived of the existence of the Random Tengu Girl, but they're on the Let's Danmaku forum. Fairy Yuuka concept by I got from Demon Neko Shen. Everything else is owned by Team Shanghai Alice.


	2. Chapter 2

With my job as a guard done for the day, I remove myself from my post as one of the other Hakurou (whose name I cannot pronounce for some strange reason) replaces me. I am almost thankful that Momiji has already gone home for the day already since that means I won't have to suffer another defeat by her hands.

I leap up the rocks from my guard post, not bothering to rely on neither magic nor my wind powers to accomplish the feat. While I'm half way up to my destination, something catches my attention. I have good eyesight like all tengu but I can't succeed in seeing something that's not in my line of sight like a clairvoyant can. I detected it with my nose.

A female Karasu Tengu about 15 meters to my left, which was odd since the Karasu are charged with scouting and collecting information about areas that are outside the borders of Tengu Territory. This anomaly perked my curiosity so I leaped in that direction. As the scent of blood became known to my nose, she noticed my approach before I could see her.

"You, can you help me please?" she called out to me with a groan. I cleared away the bush to see who she was. She was a tengu with brown eyes whose long brown hair was done in pigtails with purple ribbons.

She was wearing a pinkish shirt with purple trim on the collar and a thin black tie, a black band around one arm. Her skirt had a black and purple checker pattern with a floral pattern on the purple. A small brown pouch on her hip was fastened through a belt which went through her skirt's loops. On top of her head was a purple tokin. She also had thigh-high black socks, as well as pale purple-ish red geta sandals with purple straps.

I think this was that Hatate girl Momiji mentioned.

My eyes followed her socks up to below her knees…wait, she's wearing thigh-highs and rolled them down. Is that to reduce lecherous staring? I have heard that most males prefer seeing females wearing thigh-highs.

And…one of her knees was torn open, the knee cap bone destroyed and tendons torn apart. This probably was from the sniper tengu's attempt at killing Aya failing. Yes, she was defiantly this "Hatate".

"Do you need me to carry you home?" I asked her.

"Y-yes." She was blushing as if she was embarrassed. Given her wings' condition, they're probably injured too. That would make flying dangerous for her, even if she used the wind to make herself weightless. A Karasu Tengu that can't fly, I think I understand why she's embarrassed.

Alternatively, the thought of being carried may be an embarrassment as it implies one is still a child or so I recall.

Perhaps I should have helped her instead of playing Dai Shogi with Momiji while I was on break if she was so inconvenienced.

"I can't be jerking you around without a splint," I grabbed her by the leg and slowly eased her into partially bent position. I then removed my scimitar's sheath and placed it parallel to her leg.

"I'll be using your sandal straps to hold it with your leg," I tell her.

"Wait, no! That's…" She did not finish her sentence.

"It's either that or I use my belt which will result in me having to carry you without my hakama."

She thought on it for a few moments, she seemed to process the situation. My eyebrow rose at the amount of time she was taking to make the choice.

Great Tenma, don't tell me she'd rather me go without my hakama! I was not going to parade around city virtually half naked!

"I was joking. That's not going to happen," I tell her before she gets any bright ideas.

Wipe that disappointed look off your face! It's not like you're going to see legs ripped with muscles given that I actually feed myself unlike the men who pose for paintings and sculptures.

After fastening the sheath to her leg to act as a splint using the straps from her sandal, I reach one hand under her back and one under her legs and lift her whole body up. With her secured in my arms, I look over at her to get the final confirmation.

"Ready?" I ask.

"Yes." And with that answer, I leap up several dozen feet to the next ledge and leap from that ledge until we reach the a large flat area where a road begins.

"Oh yes, what's your name?" she asks sometime after we started walking.

"Sasuke Ito."

"Hatate Himekaidou. Thank you for helping me, Mister Ito."

I do not respond to her thanks aside from an acknowledging grunt. "You're welcome" implicates that I'd be happy to help her in the later days of trial and I'm not going to make a promise when so many undetected factors could make such a promise impossible to keep. "Anytime" not only does this same thing but also adds the demand that I make myself ready to help her at all times. "Don't mention it" has its own place and time, in this situation it would be as if I was telling her not to thank me and thus encourage rudeness on her part. On the other hand, the term "no problem" sounds patronizing to many as it abridges the perceived severity of a problem, especially to older individuals who demand respect (even if the problem is only as small as the one saying "no problem" makes it out to be).

"Which section of the city are you in?" I ask her, realizing that I don't even know if I'm going the right direction.

"Actually, the part right in front of us, third house on the left," she answers, pointing at the houses a few dozen yards away, lucky me.

The hill like area had several houses on it. And there was grass near said houses, lots of grass. Grass didn't naturally grow up here, meaning that someone was putting time and effort to have grass on their property.

This walk was probably going to be short given that it was only two hundred feet but I might as well try to socialize while I have this lady present.

The problem is starting with a good conversation topic. I didn't want to ask her about her private life since I was a stranger, nor did I want to talk about my own. This narrowed things down to…oh wait, there was something I could ask about without sounding awkward.

"You were shot by the sniper, right?" I ask her, "Why were you even in the bushes to begin with?"

Ms. Himekaidou looked to be upset. What did I do this time?

"Wait, you knew? Why didn't you help me earlier!" she demanded angrily.

"I was on guard duty at the time while three able bodied women were free so one of them could have helped you, I didn't know your location as it was Momiji who saw you get hit via her clairvoyance, and I figured that it wasn't so serious of an injury since she was unconcerned thus it would be illogical for me to waste my energy on it. It also wasn't until after I approached you that I heard you screamed out for help."

The Karasu woman was stunned, she decided to change the subject back to what I originally intended.

"There was a rumor about Aya getting a boyfriend, so I was trying to get information about it."

"Find all the details about the truth before making a newspaper about it?"

"Exactly, something that Aya doesn't exceed in doing!"

Her tone seems to indicate that there is a rivalry in the newspaper business between the two of them. This also reinforces what I've heard about Aya's paper not being totally accurate.

We arrive at her house. It was of standard design for a house in Gensokyo, medium sized in terms of width and depth and was two stories tall. It's surrounded by a gate and has grass like the other houses in this district.

A man was trimming the bushes within the gate, another Karasu Tengu. This one was older, much older than Aya, I would assume he was her uncle or father. His attire looked similar to Hatate's aside from the changes in form to make it more suitable for male such as replacing the skirt with long pants. He turned and looked at us as we approached the front gate.

"Hatate!" shouts the man, "What happened!"

"The random girl was trying to kill Aya for stealing her boyfriend…I took a bullet to the knee," she answers.

Random, was the sniper unpredictable or something? A young female who was both of a powerful lineage and was also unpredictable, I suspect those who were not part of the Mountain Youkai would be terrified of such a concept.

"Sir, we need to get her onto a bed or chair," I said.

"Of course!" The man cleared the path to the front door of other garden tools then opened the sliding front door for us. The interior of the entry was brown with wood. A sort of table was present next to the stair case leading to the next floor. As we entered, the man pointed us to the right and into what I assumed was a lounge. I managed to lay Hatate down on an old worn piece of furniture that looked kind of like a cross between a bed and a series of chairs (I believe they're called couches).

"If she stays off of it, it should be completely healed within a week. Sooner if we can find someone with healing magic," the man said. The fact that our wounds take so long to heal almost makes me envy vampires who can regrow their entire body in the span of a day's time. Not that the weaknesses would be a trade off when you also would have to lose some of the functions you had as a tengu to gain the functions of a vampire. For that reason I am happy I was born a tengu.

My work done, the man looks over at me.

"Who is this, your boyfriend?" he asks Hatate.

"Huh? No, we just met about an hour ago, father. My wings were broken so he carried me here," Hatate answered. To this, the man seemed to lighten up suddenly. He rushed to my hand at a speed only a Karasu Tengu could move at, took my hand and started shaking it.

"Thank you ever so much for helping our precious Hatate!" Hatate's father said.

Is it that big of a deal? I just did the right thing. Even if I wasn't present, she'd probably heal enough to get back home on her own before starving or be helped by someone else.

My train of thought is interrupted when my stomach calls out, demanding me to restock my physical energy reserves. I had forgotten that I haven't eaten ever since before my shift when I was cleaning my scimitar.

"If that is all, I need to leave before the market close tonight," I inform them. Mister Himekaidou looks at me with a sort of hopeful look on his face.

"Actually, if you don't have prior engagements, would you like to stay for dinner?" he asked. Now that he mentioned it, I did smell something cooking, rice and bamboo shoots.

A free meal would be less stressful on my own wallet. At the same time, it would save me a trip to the market to buy food. Refusing now would be stupid of me, not to mention rude. I don't need to be thought of as rude.

"If you will have me, I would be grateful."

"Dinner is ready!" I hear a feminine voice call out in the direction of the smell of food cooking.

"We're eating in the lounge today!" Hatate's father calls back.

A woman enters the room with a pot of stew whose primary ingredients were what I earlier smelled. The woman is another Karasu Tengu; her dress style different all together, something like what Ms. Shameimaru in color and pattern, but much more like a sort of kimono. She looks to be Mister Himekaidou's age; I assume she is Hatate's mother.

"Ah, who are you?" she asked, probably not expecting a guest over.

…

Thanks to Hatate, I dodged having to explain anything. It was even better when her younger sibling (is that a boy or a girl? I can't tell) entered the room hearing that dinner was ready and wanted to know everything that happened as well.

And so the five of us were seated at the table and eating.

"So Ito, being a Hakurou Tengu, what's your job like?" her father asked me.

"Guarding points of interest, patrolling routes and paperwork in regards to such."

"What's your rank?"

"I was promoted to Lieutenant recently." Now that I think about it, "Recently" might not be the best words to go by. While I'm going by what I recall as the common tengu's perception of recent, I could mean a patient god's perception of recent for all they know. I also doubt that they understood the functions and importance since they're Karasu Tengu, so I'm sure I'll have to go into detail on that.

"Lieutenant, so you're…the leader of those who are actually on site when there's a problem?" he asked. Looks like I was wrong to jump to conclusions.

"Simply said," I answer. Lieutenants aren't the highest rank, but those who outrank lieutenants rarely appear whenever an incident occurs.

"Can't say I'm surprised, you did become the champion of that swordsmen tournament, right?"

"Which one?" I've won more than one of them, not all but…

"The one last year, I won big by betting on you. You have my thanks!" As unneeded as it seems, I'm somehow flattered to hear that.

Wait, people bet on who wins fights in the tournaments? That's news; although that makes sense in hindsight as to why people actually cheered me on when I was never the crowd favorite.

"So you've been tournament champion multiple times and one of the lieutenants in the mountain defense? You must be popular with the ladies!"

"No, I'm not…not that I'm aware of," I answer. Although I've had some female fans due to my activity in the tournaments, most of the females I've met preferred men who either appear prettier or more masculine. There are also the women who want men who starve themselves so that you can see their muscles.

Hatate's father brightened up even more from my words.

"Is that so? Maybe you should date Hatate?" While it can be considered improper of you to openly suggest such things and while I may be made uncomfortable from you speaking it, I do appreciate your honestly. I was bad with detecting subtle hinting last I checked.

Hatate, on the other hand, immediately spat her tea out of her mouth and into her cup then looked at her father in shock.

"W-What did you say?" she asked. Yeah, given our species' ability to hear well, any self-respecting tengu would have been able to hear that clearly 100 feet away, I doubt you misheard it.

"Oh, but wouldn't Hatate prefer dating one of the Karasu Tengu?" Hatate's mother spoke.

"Not if they're lack power and status," her father retorted.

"I still believe a Karasu would be better suited for our daughter."

It seems Mrs. Himekaidou was against the idea of a Hakurou becoming her son-in-law. That said, I know several Hakurou Tengu who would take offense to that. I, however, remain unfazed; if she does not like white wolves, who am I to argue with her? I will gain nothing from worsening the matter.

Mixed marriages between Tengu are usually avoided and looked down upon but are not illegal seeing as the Tenma accepted my friend's marriage when he was a Hanataka Tengu and his wife was a Yamabushi Tengu. One reason it is looked down upon because such unions produce normally fewer offspring and each of those offspring would produce fewer offspring per offspring.

However, the driving reason was that the mixed offspring were believed to be weaker than purebloods in overall efficiency. While the mixed offspring take on the features that all Tengu shared, they lacked the efficiencies its pureblooded parents' respective subspecies carries.

Of course, if this was true then why haven't I ever seen such featureless half-breeds? All "half breeds" I've seen take on the primary traits of one parent or the other; if your mother was a Dai Tengu then there was a 50% chance that you'd be born a Dai Tengu.

I would think that making mixed marriages a social taboo was a means so that someone would insure that they got the mate they wanted by making it culturally unacceptable for said mate to be taken by a potential rival who was from another category of tengu.

However, that would be an illogical reason for her mother to not want Hatate to marry a Hakurou Tengu, so there's probably some other reason she has.

"And besides, you don't even know if they're into each or not," Mrs. Himekaidou said. Smartest thing said today?

While logic dictates that I should be appalled, I feel that this is mildly entertaining. Judging from Hatate's facial expressions, she does not share my opinion.

"By Tenma, will you two stop it!" she shouted as she slammed her fists on the table.

"Stop what?" her parents ask.

"He's not here on a miai! He only came here carrying me because I was injured!"

"We thought that he was using that as an excuse to start one up," the father admitted. While I admit that it's clever on the surface, any man who shoots a woman in the knee just to carry her home is mad…or a rapist.

"Why would you assume that? My knee is rendered useless!" Hatate screamed.

"Well, couldn't you have flown back?"

"My wings were broken, and I'm still learning how to properly fly when becoming one with the wind!"

And with that, the two parents had faces of horror. They had mistakably caused their child embarrassment. I was not agitated so much as unsettled.

But at this rate, a needless fight was going to break out…or something else of similar issue.

"According to this one Kappa I talked to; there are these long, thin strands about the thickness around of a hair. They are arranged in bundles and used to direct light over long distances. She thinks that the insides are made of a reflective surface to direct said light. She thinks by sending hot air mixed through a mix of silicon chloride and germanium chloride will help make a base material she can use. She then plans to use gas vapors conducted to the inside of a smooth rock tube-"

I pause to see that the three of them are shocked. What, did I say something wrong?

…

The rest of the dinner had been weird to be honest. Hatate and her family had been looking at me like something had been off. Of course, none of them answered what they saw was wrong. The rest of the dinner had been nice and peaceful. Eventually it got late, and so I would leave.

Hatate's father walked me to the door.

"Thank you for the food, my condolences to the cook," I tell him.

"Thank you for helping our daughter," he answers back.

I finally found something to say to people should they thank me…of course, this only works if I have done exactly as I say I had.

"It was the right thing to do."

"Well, even so…come back and have dinner sometime!"

"I'll consider it." Or so I plan to. Mrs. Himekaidou is a good cook. If I didn't already figure the reasons why, I would be surprised that she wasn't a professional cook.

I give a quick bow before I turn away and begin walking towards the gate. To be honest, interacting with others is not a bad thing.

I step off of the property of the Himekaidou family, entering the cool night of the neighborhood. My eyes quickly adjust to the darkness, the scenery lightly lit by the clear and starry sky.

I begin walking up the road which slowly elevates as I walk given its subtlety slanted form. In front of me is a horizon line indicating the volcano's mouth. Along its edges were some more buildings.

When I reach the mouth of the volcano, I peer down into it to see the city which the majority of us tengu call home. The few lights indicate that some people are awake at this time, although we rarely need to bother with using fire for light while we have our own night vision and the stars in the sky.

I leap down from the edge of the volcano and onto a ledge beneath me as I do not need to bother using magic or becoming one with the wind to fly down. I leap down to the second ledge afterward and repeat this process until I reach one of the ledges near a suspended bridge. It was at this time when I remembered something important.

I left my sword at Hatate's house.

* * *

**Author's notes:**

You demanded it, so I continued it. Hopefully I'm not screwing something up. Special thanks to Shen for Proof reading it. Also, I found out who invented the Random Tengu Girl, it was Captain Vulcan. If you manage to find any errors or problems with how I've portrayed everything, I would appreciate you informing me.


	3. Chapter 3

It was morning. Being one with the wind, I fly up the wall of the volcano's mouth as all Hakurou Tengu who do leap up using physical strength or fly using magic would…unless they were using the elevators. But I was pressed for time, so I used what I determined was the fastest method.

With my Scimitar still in its sheath, which is at the Himekaidou's house, I am stuck with just my shield. Of course, I did not like that one bit seeing how my poor skills in regards to using shields caused me to lose in a fight. Therefore, I need to pay them a visit to get my scimitar back.

It's not long after I reach the peak that I hear someone speak to me.

"Hey, where's your sword? Did you forget it?"

I turn to see a Kappa Woman. She has blue hair tied into twin tails and blue eyes. She is wearing a blue dress with lots of pockets around the hem of the skirt and her upper arm, and a dark aquamarine backpack with a golden key on the strap in front of her. She also is wearing a green hat with a white wispy symbol on it as well as blue wellington boots.

Her name escapes me, if I heard it at all, but I recall seeing her make her way to the Tenma's palace yesterday.

"Yes," I answer, "But you obviously need something if you're going to go out of your way to call out to me."

"A-are you Mr. Ito?" she asks timidly.

"I am."

"I was told to give this letter to you since if you didn't have your sword on you," she said as she held out a scroll to me. I spotted a red winged symbol on the letter, one that all adult Tengu knew well.

The scroll is stamped with the Tenma's seal!

"Thank you," I bow as I reach out and take the scroll from the Kappa woman.

"I shall take my leave!" the Kappa says before running off.

I start walking towards my post as I open the scroll and begin to read it. If it's from the Tenma, it must be important!

…

"_Hello my cute, little Sasuke! How are you doing this fine morning?"_

…

"Cute and little," what the Hell? For one, you should not be calling a full grown man who is head and shoulders taller than you 'little.'

"_Since you won't be on guard duty due to lack of a sword, and since everyone else who is not on guard duty is too dr__unk to rely on at the moment, you will be the one to do this task I need done__.__"_

How did you even know I didn't have a sword?

"_I need you to go to the human village and see if they have any machine parts that the Kappa can use. They're doing a special proje__ct that I really want done. The money you should need should be sealed in the scroll. Speed of the wind to you!"_

And for that reason, I never made it to work that morning.

…

The trek down the mountain was easy and simple. Like how I descended the volcano's mouth the night before, I drop from rock ledge to rock ledge.

Each time I land, I bend my knees to absorb the impact. Not a necessity for myself as the small drop is 5 to 10 yards, but it's a good habit to be in in case I drop from a 100 yards without magical aid. I was also told it helps the rocks maintain their form.

On my way down, I see a river running. If I recall correctly, one of my colleagues said something about there being lots of fish here. If fishing really is as good for the body as people say it is, perhaps I should visit sometime…

Beyond the river is the forest which covers almost all of the lowest third of the mountain. Somewhere beyond this is where the border between the Youkai Mountain and the Forest of Magic is.

The forest of magic is named that for a multitude of reasons, so I've been informed.

One is because of the abundance of magical species. This racial melting pot has been known to create new types of creatures as well as more stable relations between different races. Or so I've heard. I haven't had a chance to actually search the whole thing so...

Anyways, it connects more of the major areas of Gensokyo than any other section of land. There are even some areas which you cannot leave without entering the forest of magic.

Next was a hard decision that I would want to make in a second's time.

By using magic or becoming one with the wind, I could fly over the forest and save myself time. Or I could exercise my speed and maneuverability by running across the forest floor as fast as I can or by leaping through the trees, practicing my timing and precision.

Of course, I just had to wait a whole second to make my decision. This delay would let fate decide for me which one I took.

"HELP!"

I turn my head in the direction of screaming. It sounds feminine. I leap into the air and start flying in the direction of the sound. No harm seeing what it was given that it wasn't out of my way…right?

I fall from the sky and land on a tree branch as I peer into the clearing where the scream is coming from. I see a small girl with purple hair; she is a human judging from her scent. She is in a clearing in the forest. In her hand, she is waving a small rod…wait, no…a wand. She is trying to cast magic. I look in the direction she seems to want to cast her failing spells…there is a giant spider.

I'm not going to waste my time measuring its size, but the spider is probably large enough to swallow her whole.

The spider's eyes look up from the girl, looking directly at me. He can see that I am present.

"I see you've arrived! But you're far too late!" it spoke. Wait, what? Was it expecting me? I just came here out of curiosity…

"I've already captured this little morsel, and I plan on killing her and eating her," it gestures to the human girl it has in its clutches.

"Uh…neat, I guess." I understand if a youkai is hungry, but why would it be declaring it? Does it think it did something to be proud of? And while humans are able to fight youkai effectively, even with their weak bodies, there's nothing impressive about defeating them.

That's not to say you should see them as unable to defeat you, no. I would have been killed by that one Hakurei Miko if I underestimated her and let up when we fought.

"But before I can do that, I'm going to kill YOU!"

…

A beast youkai saying it could kill a Tengu? Normally, that is considered a laughable concept to even dream up (well, maybe not entirely if it's a powerful beast, a weak Tengu or a combination of both). While my experiences tell me not to look down on others solely for their species, it's difficult not to feel like it's silly to take such a threat seriously. I'm sure many of the Tengu I know would be rolling on the ground while laughing their heads off at the idea of a beast defeating a Tengu.

"Really? That would be intimidating if you were…well, intimidating," I inform him.

The spider growled before speaking a second time.

"Are you mocking me!?" it demands.

"No! No, no, no, no," I say. Actually, I guess I was now that I think about it. I suppose I should verbally correct myself. "Yes sir, I am."

Immediately, the spider swings its arm at me. I lean back, wasting no energy as I placed my chest area out of the spider's reach.

"My apologies, it wasn't my intention to anger you," I say. The spider simply growls again and takes another shot at me.

"Sir, you should calm down. You do have your food, right? You should calm down." This time it tries to impale me with a downward strike. Now that I think about it, maybe it's also angry that I called it 'sir'?

"Miss?" I ask. The spider this time lets out a roar.

…

I'm flying backwards. I'm not using magic nor am I using my power of wind to fly. I did not jump either. Trees are being up rooted as I pass them.

I feel my back collide with something hard, which breaks.

My vision is fuzzy from the trauma, but I quickly recover and see that I am in a sort of crater of bark and wood. I force myself to my feet. Looking around, I see that roughly a hundred square meters of forest has been completely leveled.

This youkai's roar could blast all those trees with its roar.

What the Hell was I fighting?!

"Me? I'm a Spider Youkai," it spoke. It was standing over me. It was already in the middle of throwing another strike at me!

I reach for my back, gripping my shield and pulling it up. I raise it to meet the attack. All while the spider finishes the second half of its strike. I successfully raise my shield just fast enough to block the strike. For the first time since longer than I care to remember, I use my shield properly.

And it shatters, allowing the claws to impale my arm.

Wait what!? My arm's been impaled! Okay, stay calm! It's lifting me off the ground; my arm is being wretched apart from the force! It hurts!

I'm flying, my arm halts just beyond the elbow. I have to fix this! If I collide with the ground, I may lose consciousness! Once that happens, I'm dead. I can't cast magic, so I have to concentrate…

_I am the wind._

I feel my existence alter ever so slightly, meaning that I have succeeded.

_Halt the fall! Halt the fall!_

I await the pain of impact, but it doesn't come. I look down to see that I'm just above the ground. I have succeeded. Good, now the next thing I need to do is stop my bleeding. If I use air pressure, I can keep the blood from leaving my body through the wound.

"Nifty!" I look up and see the spider charging me. With a burst of pressure, I fly upwards and out of its path. It destroys everything in its path, trees, rocks and all in a show of force. Once it stopped, it reached out with its arms and started throwing trees at me, large ones!

How is a spider youkai that powerful? How many humans would it have to have eaten? Or how many centuries would it have to have existed? Under ordinary circumstances, I would have physical strength comparable to it. But this thing was clearly stronger than me.

"None, that girl was going to be my first, and I'm eleven years old."

Then how come it's so powerful?

"Simple, I ate an oni who died and gained its power."

…Wait.

There was something wrong with that statement; if beasts could eat youkai and gain power from them, wouldn't there be more conflict among the youkai races? Also, I've never heard of any of the beast youkai becoming more powerful from eating anything other than humans.

For that reason, I felt there was need to doubt that this was a spider who managed to gain the powers of an oni from simply eating it. But its strength and durability were in fact genuine. Breaking my arm like a stick, absorbing my attack, blasting the trees just by exhaling…

"What? Do the animals of the surface gain nothing from eating youkai, ghosts and evil spirits?"

Evil spirits? While evil spirits have appeared in Gensokyo periodically…they are rare. Same with Ghosts…this must mean that.

But there's a problem, evil spirits kill the mind of the youkai they possess. In my experiences, touching one proved fatal.

"You eat Evil Spirits? I find that highly unlikely," I say.

"Maybe not on the surface world, but all animals from where I come from eat evil spirits! It's our primary food!"

…

Evil Spirits…a primary source of food? Now it makes sense! This animal is from the depths of Hell! If Evil Spirits who are in Gensokyo are escaped convicts from Hell, perhaps they are consumed by whatever is there in Hell - the beasts of Hell.

Hell Beasts.

"The animals from Hell wield such terrifying possibilities?" I ask.

"We do become more powerful as we consume other creatures. But those of us who obtain the abilities of those we consume when we do not have some sort of link between ourselves and the one we consume are rarities."

And even so, insects are not considered to be on the same level as animals that fall under the beast category.

This means that this youkai standing before me was born a prestigious spider youkai who just so happened to be born in Hell, and just so happened to have been born with the ability to obtain other abilities more easily, and just so happen to be the lucky being to make it to our surface world.

I think there's a word for this type of entity.

"Seeing that you're supposedly something fast, I think I'll become invincible if I eat you!"

The beast lunges forward in hopes to grab me. I flew under it through the large gap of space created from the creature removing itself from the ground. As I flew under it, I reached out with the wind and sliced at the underbelly. The creature roared again, but this time it was in pain and thus weaker and I was not in front of the monster either. However, I could tell that the wound was not deep enough. This is why I need a sword; it would increase my chances at victory seeing that it would have left a deeper wound. Thankfully, I did the logical thing and did not make myself reliant on my sword.

First, to immobilize it; I sharpen the wind and strike out at the legs, what I recall is a spider's (the animal) weakest body part. The creature's leg is cut, but only enough to draw blood, far from enough to actually be worthwhile unless I actually continue cutting at it. And of course, the monster charges at me again. I was about to dive under its body when I notice that it's moving slower than before and dropping, it was trying to catch me in its claws!

I halt my advance then begin to fly backwards as the spider narrowly misses grabbing me. I hold my hand out, palm facing the spider and begin to fire off a curtain of bullets made of magic energy.

One shot can instantly incapacitate a fairy. On top of this, I can shoot more of them than I can count in a short period of time. It was obvious that the Spider would be feeling pain from the numerous bullet shots I shot him in the face with.

It retracted like it was about to give it tree blasting roar again. I stop firing the bullets and start performing a one handed motion to bring up a magical barrier. I am not a moment too late as the as the area surrounding me is destroyed by the pressure of the monsters roar. As my barrier weakens, I take up the wind into the form of a blade for the second time. I remove the air pressure from my bleeding stub to allow more power be put into the blade.

The moment the roaring stops, I drop my magical energies from holding up the barrier and throw the wind blade at the legs.

And off goes all four legs of that side!

As the creature roars in agony a second time, I reapply air pressure to my bleeding side. Now that it's immobilized, I can end this fight!

"_Dark as night, fast as light, strike my enemy with all my might!"_ I quickly make a pentagram shape using hand motions as I speak the incantation. This was an infamous Oni killing spell, or so I have been told. It was the most effective weapon I had when I fought an oni those decades ago, so I decided to use it here. If the spider youkai was taking on the powers of the oni, perhaps it was taking on its weaknesses as well.

I fire the spell "Black Lightning" off at the spider right before it can impact me. As named, it looks like lightning, only pitch black. It struck the monster head on, causing it to scream in agony. Unlike the roars, the screams of agony only hurt the ears and did nothing to anything else. So of course I tried to cover my ears with my with my one arm.

…Then silence…

I uncovered my ears and looked at the monster I had been fighting. It was severely injured, burnt here and there, and gasping.

Now that I won, what was I supposed to do with it? Should I end its life right now? Perhaps I should report to the Tenma first? No, that's what the Karasu Tengu are for…speaking of which I haven't sensed any nearby since before the battle. This is odd considering this would be something they'd be all over…

"Beaten," the spider gasped, "by a mere dog."

…

Something about us Hakurou tengu,

"_Dark as night, fast as light, strike my enemy with all my might,"_

You never call us "dogs."

"Black Lightning."

…

When the spider's remains were nothing but ash, the purple haired human girl approached me, leaving her cover from behind a fallen tree.

"Uh, Mr. youkai?" she asked. I turned to look at her, she was…holding my missing arm, and was holding it out to me.

"Thank you," I said, reaching out for my severed limb and taking it from her. I gave her a slight bow in appreciation.

"Ah, no; Thank you for saving my life!" the girl said. Actually, now that I got a better look at her, I think she in her late teens, so saying she's a girl is…

"It was the logical thing to do," I reply. Well, ending the immediate threat to myself and a potential threat to the existence of all of Tengu society was logical. However, my complete eradication of the monster however without giving second thought was mostly out of hate.

I hold the arm to my stump, it immediately begins reattaching.

"May I know the name of my savior all the same?" the human woman asked me.

"Sasuke Ito, temporary errand boy."

"Hieda," she answers.

"From the chronicler family? What are you doing so far out in the forest by yourself?"

"Well, I was supposed to be accompanying a group of people where supposedly good at dealing with youkai to get a better understanding of how youkai operate, but I got separated from them." She lets out a nervous chuckle.

"Perhaps the curse goddess can help you; she lives near here if memory serves correctly."

"I think I have enough information for the time being to get started actually," she answers.

"If you're going to the human village, mind me tagging along?"

"Oh course you may, I still need to pay you back after all."

Huh, I guess I could use new shield…wait, no. I'll want something else. I can't use my shield properly, so I should get a sword.

"Ms. Hieda!" A man was running our direction.

After Hieda explained the situation to the man, he acknowledged me for my help in protecting her. And so when we met up with the others of their group, we headed for the human village. Our trip would be comparatively uneventful, unless I wasn't paying attention.

…

Wait, couldn't the Hell Spider read my mind? If so, why didn't it dodge or something when I clearly was planning to?

I guess beast youkai really are air heads.

* * *

**Author's notes:**

Special thanks to Demon Neko Shen and Captain Vulcan for proof reading.

By the way, the word Sasuke is thinking of earlier is "Mary Sue."

Speaking of which, is it overpowered of Sasuke to have defeated said Hell Spider? I figured that the battle was made easier on Sasuke from him using a spell falling under the category of magic which is an Oni's weakness but it still feels like it took a too short of time and that he didn't struggle enough...


	4. Chapter 4

I held the scabbard in my right hand as I held the long sword with my left, examining its craftsmanship so that I could decide how I would have to mentally prepare myself for using it. It lacked a curve which would make it less effective in striking while drawing as well as slashing. Therefore, if I wanted to use it to the best of its construction, I would have to rely either on using its tip for stabbing, or rely on using hacking motions. While I can tell that it is sharp enough for even a human to best an animal with, it lacked the sharpness of my Scimitar. I will have to deal with that some time. Otherwise, it appears to be a sturdy blade.

I sheath the weapon as I look to the young woman whom paid for it, Ms. Hieda of the Human Village.

"Are you're certain I can borrow this?" I ask her.

"No, I'm certain you can have it!" she responded.

In return for saving her life, Ms. Hieda offered to buy me a shield to replace the one I lost when I fought the Spider from Hell. When I mentioned that I utterly sucked at using my shield, she asked me why I even bothered carrying it. I told her it was standard equipment to the Mountain Defense Corps along with scimitars.

She then offered to buy me a replacement sword (but not a scimitar as no one in the Human Village sold any of those).

"Are you absolutely sure you want to give me a sword? I'm happy you're willing to pay for a sword for me to use and willing to risk never seeing it again-"

She somehow had a serious air about her. Even though she smiled with her eyes closed and her head tilted to the side, she seemed like she somehow wanted to kill me. I took this as that she was getting annoyed by me refusing her offer in my attempt at being certain. This is probably indication that she is losing her patience with me. I'll simply accept the sword and stop annoying her.

"In that case, thank you very much," I say as I take the sword and give her a bow.

"No reason to thank me," she said as her aura of negative emotion seemed to dispel, "I am paying you back for saving my life, am I not?"

"True."

* * *

My trip through the human village was much like a trip through the Tengu City, only the humans living there and the youkai who were visiting were noticeably slower in motion. Along with this, there was a distinctly smaller number of electronic devices. The only humans with access to that level of technology seemed to be a small minority.

But I wasn't about to give up so soon. I was certain I could find what I was looking for, even if it took me a day of searching...

"Hey, mommy! That man has ears on his head like a dog!"

_Dog! _What brat just called me a dog!? I look around to see a small child who was probably the human race's equivalency of one or two centuries (six years I think). He was holding the hand of an adult woman who shared similar. She seemed to be terrified as she looked at me. She quickly spoke to her child.

"It's rude to point, dear! He's probably just a youkai visiting! Mind your manners!" She then turned to me. "Please forgive my little one, Sir Tengu!"

Her fear is justified. There was the real possibility that I may have exploded. I had half the mind to fire off a lighting spell at them.

Just like with the Hell Spider...disproportionate retribution for something as petty as an insult. This lack of control needs to be fixed. I force myself to relax and bow.

"My apologies, I've...I haven't been well. I would hope that you would forgive me for my behavior." Actually, I didn't care if she forgave me or not. I was more worried about my lack of self control than what someone I just met believed. Although it might give me insight about how I am seen by others.

"Nonononononono!" she said, waving her hands around in front of her, "Someone so much older deserves such respect."

"Truly? Well, I won't argue with you then." Although somehow it feels to me that the human woman should not be respecting me merely for being so much older than her. Her species after all is short lived compared to my own so there was nothing to be expected...unless it was for the concept that it was a catch all form of respecting someone who has "survived this long," whether the means of survival was by feat of strength, speed, wisdom or intelligence. However, my youth being longer is the reason why I have the strength and speed. Speaking of intelligence...

"By the way, do you know where I might happen to find someone who sells machine parts?"

"Machine Parts?" the woman asked with a confused look on her face.

...I had totally forgotten that the human village as a whole was behind the Tengu and Kappa in its technological level! However, the Tenma told me as if under the belief that the humans had something I could buy. The Tenma never makes mistakes, right?

Who am I kidding? This is the Tenma I'm talking about.

...

Back to the matter at hand, the Tenma will be angry if I go back empty handed so...

"Uh...really complex and effective tools?" I ask. To this, the woman seemed to go from confused to complete understanding.

"OH! Like a tool from the outside world?" she asked. Legend has it that the world outside of Gensokyo is technologically more advanced than anything here in our country. I nod in response, clarifying what I'm looking for.

"While a lot of people here have some, the _Kirisame-ya second-hand shop_ is the only place that actually sells tools like that. And their selection is never large." She points in the direction of a store which, although I doubt the human woman could see from here, has the words "_Kirisame-ya second-hand shop_" written on a sign on above the door.

"Thank you very much," I say as I give her a curtsey bow before turning and leaving the woman and her son. I overhear their conversation as I take steps away.

"Hikozaemon, next time you see a youkai with pointed ears, do not assume that they're a dog if you don't know."

"Then mommy, what is he if he isn't a dog?"

"Clearly he's a fox."

* * *

As I enter the shop, there is a great deal of commotion.

"Rokusuke, lift your side up more," spoke a blond man who was talking to one of the men who were trying to help him store a large box on a shelf.

"I'm trying!" the second man, who isn't holding his side of the box as high, says frantically.

"Yumetsugu, don't drop your side!"

I think I'll browse the selections while I wait for them to finish-

"I'm slipping!" I turn my head and see many pieces of machinery in the box, made visible by its tilting. It looks to be what I am looking for, what the Tenma told me to buy in the specifications she put in her letter!

And it is in the process of falling out of the box.

I bolt for where the device would land. If I can catch it, my job here can be done! Wait, no, it's already falling! I dive for it and...

It hits my head.

...ow...

"Thank you sir! You saved the tools!" I hear from the blond man say.

"Although we don't know what they do or how to use them so it might have not been worth saving." This voice is new, so I assume it is the man called Yumetsugu.

"Hey, that's not true; we know what they do." The man named Rokusuke says.

"Even so, we still don't know to use them."

The blond man was helping me to my feet (although I do not need help doing that) as the two speak.

"Alright, good sir! Anything in the store up to five percent off!" he said.

"Uh...in that case, I'd like to buy the machine parts in the box," I answer.

"Wait, if we don't know how to use the items, we shouldn't be selling them, right?" Rokusuke protested.

"But if he wasn't here, we would never have the chance to sell them," the blond man said.

"Not if there was some chance that they were durable enough to survive the fall," Yumetsugu quietly whispered to Rokusuke.

And with that, Rokusuke decided not to complain anymore. The purchase went well, as I was able to haggle them down to half the amount of money the Tenma gave me. This possibility was rooted in the fact that there was no real means of determining the cost of the the items when many of its functions remained unknown to the seller.

That said, I was happy with myself as I had almost all of the items the Temna wanted and spent so little of the money she gave me for the purpose of getting it.

I overhear Yumetsugu speaking to Rokusuke as I leave the store.

"How convenient that the moment we get our first significantly sized load of outsider tools, someone appears to buy them several minutes later."

...

I leave the Human village, happy that my job was mostly completed. After becoming one with the wind, I find myself flying over the forest of Magic while carrying the box of machinery.

I performed my duty to the Tenma. Even if the success was partial, I assume that the problem of some of the parts not being present will be ignorable until a later date when the parts would be accessible. All this taken into account, she may praise me.

You know, it's odd. Whenever the Tenma praises one of us Tengu, it usually feels good. Even when you want to tear the Tenma's head off, if you're thanked for something, it feels good. This phenomena had been researched before, but nothing was found. At least nothing that became known to the public. Maybe she has some mind ability.

Today is looking up, nothing to could ruin it, right?

"Help!" I hear from below me. Looking down, I see a small clearing between the trees...a male Karasu was on the ground. I didn't need to smell the blood to know he was he was injured seeing the blood.

I fly down to see what was the commotion. Landing on the ground and facing the man, I speak.

"Hakurou Sasuke Ito, ready to assist," I say. Seeing as he was injured, I begin looking to see if I stored any medicine or healing items on my person. "What is the situation?"

"Something attacked us...a youkai, it was fast enough to take us by surprise. They took several Karasu of our Murder."

Wait, what? Someone took down not one but several Karasu? Even the least capable sub-races of tengu are expected to be able to best most Beasts in combat, and the Karasu are not the least capable given how fast they are.

And someone just took out several of them?

"I'll fix you up and get you to the city, hang on," I say as pull out a vial of a liquid designed to quickly heal surface scratches and cuts.

"No, once I'm healed, I'll be able to get to Youkai Moutain myself to report this. I want you to go after the attacker and rescue those they kidnapped."

As I dab a small cloth soaked in the healing remedy over his cuts, I process what he told me. So his plan was to send something that was stronger than a Karasu after the enemy? Made sense. Also, since Karasu where higher on the social status than Hakurou, he could get away with telling me to go in his place...

"Alright, but the Tenma wanted these machine parts. Please take them with you and see to it that it reaches her when you've healed," I tell him. He nods in understanding as I place the box containing the parts next to him.

Satisfied with sight of the wounds starting to heal, I pick myself up and sniff the air for the scent to track.

Following the scent was easy. Karasu (male or female) and some other scents that I don't recognize. I had to hurry if I didn't want to lose the trail. Uninhibited by the machine parts, I fly off in the direction my nose tells me they had gone.

...

The forest path was dense, trees so close together that my speed was lowered as I tried to navigate through it. I came to the periodic clearing, but that was short lived as whoever attacked the Karasu was going through the dense path most of the time.

...

I look up to see another clearing, one much bigger and also accompanied with a large body of water. I was on the edge of the forest and at the famous infamous Misty Lake.

The water didn't reflect the blue sky as the white fog blocked it off. Whoever kidnapped the Karasu had taken them through the fog...

This fog not only inhibits my sight, but also my sense of smell. Trying to follow them through this fog would probably be the longest and most taxing part of my tracking mission.

...

I exit the fog to find myself...at the edge of the lake and near a forest. This is bad seeing as I lost their scent.

Worse, I didn't recognize the location. Perhaps if I flew back into the fog, I might fly out in a new place? If I kept this up, I would eventually find a location where I could pick up on their scent again.

With that, I dart back into the fog. After a minute of flying, I come out the other side to see a similar scene of trees. It's different, as can be seen that the stump to the left wasn't there before. I fly back into the fog, searching for another exit.

The next exit reveals a river flowing into the forest. Still no scent.

...

This exit had a tree house, again, no scent.

...

This area has nothing out of the ordinary.

This area had purple trees.

This area-wait...I've been here before.

...

I exit the fog and am greeted with...a tear in Gensokyo's border? Aren't those supposed to be on the edge of Gensokyo? Like near the Hakurei Shrine?

"Okay, this is getting ridiculous," I say as I turn my back on the city scape displayed by the tear in the barrier.

...

I find myself at an area that is totally different. The shore has no grass near it, and there is no forest. Also, I smell something different. It took me awhile to figure out what it is.

"I smell a crow," is what I would have said had I the spare energy. But it looks like after an hour, I was able to find the trace I lost. I can tell it's been about an hour given how weak the trail is. It took me way too long to get this far.

I land on the ground and begin to walk. Knowing nothing about the area, I should probably proceed with caution.

In the distance is a large, flamboyant and red building, much like one of the ones depicted in the outside world. I think the book I had read that had it in it referred to it as some sort of "European-style" mansion. There is a brick wall around it with a single metal gate at the front.

As I come closer, I can see that there is a woman with fiery red hair wearing a green and gold dress with a matching cap. This woman, I recognize her from someone's old texts from a country from pre-Gensokyo...

The legendary red haired demon woman who fought the god of calamity. I'm sure one of the Tengu archivists had a story about her that I read from my childhood. They may not be the same two people, but her appearance and the description match.

Judging from her position by the front gate and her alert stance, I would assume she was the door guard.

I slowly approach her from the front as I think of what to expect and say.

**Author Note:**

People may recognize the names Hikozaemon, Rokusuke and Yumetsugu from Perfect Memento in Strict Sense. They are people among the eyewitness reports on some of the characters. Since the names are supposedly masculine birth/first/given names, I assumed that they would be male.

Special thanks to Captain Vulcan for pointing out the anomaly in Sasuke's thinking process. Also, special thanks for Achariyth1 for pointing out several spelling and grammatical errors.


	5. Chapter 5

The metal bar gates close the open space in the large brick wall. To its left is a small chair. To its right was a red haired, blue eyed woman wearing green.

"Hello," she says as I approach.

"Hello," I say back to her, "I was requested to search for several missing persons whose scent I have tracked to this building. I was wondering if I may enter to search and find them."

"No. I have been given strict orders not to let anyone through until further instruction."

This woman is probably following the orders of whoever kidnapped the karasu. That said, I could not risk letting her be an obstruction. The fact she seems to have become more serious indicates suspicion. But even if I were to force her into submission, the chance of me getting any useful information out of her was probably slim. Thus I would probably have to enter the mansion without her help.

"You intend to have me force my way in?" I ask.

"No, I expect you to not try getting in."

"Miss..." I hung the 's' sound to help her know I wanted to call her by her last name. It supposedly helps people know you respect their existence than simply calling them some nickname thrown together from not knowing their name.

"Hong," she answered.

"Miss Hong, I am going to advance and complete the task given to me. If you do not allow me through, I will force my way in."

Looking at her body as she moved into a martial art stance which I do not recognize, I see by her well toned legs (as her dress has slits that go from the bottom and up to the waist on each side) that she trains herself physically. The contrasting smoothness that they have either indicates that she is not as physically athletic as myself and/or she keeps herself really well fed and healthy (or both). She can probably lift more than the average youkai can (whose maximum lift strength the Yakumo clan and the tengu both have estimated to be about 2845 Kilograms) seeing that she is fit.

Her expression is unwavering; be it acting skills, willpower or confidence (which would probably stem from having significant combat skill), she has it in spades.

"I will take any enemy. My opponent may be a coward who uses a weapon or magic against an unarmed opponent, but I will not falter nor will I be defeated."

...

Coward who uses a weapon or magic? I would like to think that if I was in was a fair fight then my tactics sucked, however...my pride as a tengu cannot let this slide.

Actually, it can...

Wait...

Unless she has a special ability which dictates something extreme, then it is within probability that I am physically stronger, faster and more robust than her.

The difference should be enough to ensure that I win in a physical fight and I can save my magics and my sword for more any more dangerous enemies.

If I defeat her using physical methods and she does not pull something on me, then it should discourage her from stopping me entirely (unless she's a battle junkie and decides to make me her sworn rival). Alternatively, if she decides to be a hypocrite or has some special ability, I will still have my sword, spells and wind power in arsenal.

But if she wants a "fair fight," I will give her one...and win.

See, hand to hand combat is not something new to me. During my younger years, it was normal for you to be bullied if you were the anti-social or the studious type, which I was when I wasn't obsessed with physical training. My father taught me how to punch things, not that I became particularly good at it but I survived puphood thanks to it. Kicking stuck to me better since I could use it in sync with my sword-fighting.

Of course, I will have to compensate if my opponent is a skilled martial artist as I anticipate.

My fighting stance is a relatively instinctive (or intuitive?) one that anyone can learn even without formal training.

I dash at her, hoping to end this fight with one strike. She seems to move her hand to an odd position as I bring up my own for a strike to her face (I would aim for something else, but she's too short for me to go out of my way to do so).

However, when I was about to strike her, she seemed to move in a peculiar way. Before I could register what she was doing, I felt my shoulder being slammed downward into the ground, my momentum carrying me several yards. I lift myself from the ground; I should have seen that coming! I spin upwards to face her and see she is already coming at me with a fist that connects to my jaw.

We exchange blows; she suddenly closes the distance, making her too close for me to draw my arms in and defend myself. She strikes me in the jaw with an uppercut. I stagger backwards as I am forced to look up in the air. I can see she's in the air, bringing her two fists down. I lift my arm in defense, easily blocking. I follow up by slamming the palm of my other arm into her open body, sending her on to her back. She rolled onto her feet using the momentum. I try to rush her again, but she is already leaping into the air. And I-

See the bare inside of her thighs along with her panties?

Her foot slams into my face. Although I am in pain, I immediately grab her by the foot before she can leap off of me. I throw her into the brick wall surrounding the mansion and I immediately run at her. As I close in on her, she lands on the wall, bends her legs and arm with the kinetic force, causing it to spread and allow her a safe impact. Before I can smash into her, she directs force to the wall, leaping and sending herself over me as I smash into the wall. I miss her, cracking the wall and even dislodging some of the broken bricks. I spin as I pull out as she spins in midair. By luck, my outstretched hand encounters her arm which she intends to use to strike strike me with. Grabbing it, I swing the woman into the brick wall and through it.

Even as she flies through the bricks, she does not fail to roll onto her feet after landing the ground.

She brings her hands together so that the palms are several inches from each other. I can feel energy gathering to them...

She was going to strike me with magic!? I knew I shouldn't have...wait, no-this wasn't magic. Magic energies felt entirely different. What she was gathering is a more primordial energy that is inside all living things, and especially strong in herself.

"Haaaaaaaah!" she seems to yell as she gathers large amounts of Qi between her hands. You don't need to be sensitive to tell as the density of life energy is enough to give it form.

I've seen monks use this technique, but none of them were this powerful. It is a brute force attack where you shoot your target with a large burst made of your Qi.

On cue, she throws her palms forward, letting off a huge burst of energy at me. The solution is simple, I dodge to the side. The blast tears past me, tearing the ground.

I begin running at her from the side, but her hands finish releasing the energy sooner than I calculated and she rolls to the side, dodging my flying kick.

I spin, and she's already throwing a punch at my chest. Her punch lands, I ignore the pain and deflect her arm and follow up with a punch of my own. She parries before my punch can land and drives up her knee-

Oh no you don't!

My blocking hand rams down on her leg, keeping it from crotch kicking me. I do not see her initial striking hand before it can strikes me in the face.

Before I can recover, she presses her hand against me.

Something bright and colorful explodes, sending me flying. I hit a tree, but that doesn't stop my flight. I'm landing on my back, the momentum making me scrape against the ground. But I scramble to my feet easily enough.

At almost the same time, we dart at each other.

I leap into the air to give myself an air advantage while she runs up the falling tree's side (did my colliding with it cause it to break?). Following it up with a leap, she is now above me. I strike out at her, but her smaller body makes it simple for her to slip past my arms with ease as I try to hit her. As she flies over me, her arm reaches down and she catches my face in her hand.

The force she provides causes me to bend backwards while still flying forward. My flight path is curving as my body does the same. I feel her grabbing my thigh with her other arm, now I am facing upwards and falling.

I feel her impact the ground with me on top of her, whatever position she is in, she causes the force to go into my back.

"GUH!"

She applies upward force to toss my body into the air.

As I turn in midair, I try to swing my fist at her as I fall. At the same time, she spins to give herself momentum while bringing her leg up.

As my fist grazes her face, my stomach receives the full strength of her kick. I collide with something hard like the brick wall, but clearly sturdier as it doesn't collapse apart from the impact.

As I scramble to my feet, I see her running at me.

I throw my fist at her face, she tilts her head out of it's path and drives her fist into the section of my body between my chest and my stomach.

I feel it forcing the air out of my body as I reel back. Before I can bring my head back up, I feel her taking hold of it in her hands. With what is effectively a yank, she pulls my head down and into her knee.

I find my self being slammed back into the non-brick wall.

"So you can't succeed without your precious weapons or magic?" she asks as she steps back.

I let out a grunt I pull myself from the wall.

I beat a spider who had the strength of an oni, I couldn't let myself be beaten here...

Wait...

In unarmed combat, the main factors are technique, experience and speed. Additional factors may include strength, durability and stamina but experience serves to allow one to predict their opponent's actions. But if someone intends to put thought into their actions, then they become predictable and the speed of their attacks lessen.

That said, Hong cannot lose so long as I keep delaying my actions and letting her anticipate what I'm doing. I have not put enough thought into several things, but the problem is that I need to put more speed into my actions. Superior strength has no value if I can't hit her. If I have time between actions, I need to think more. If I have no time, I need to think less.

Think less.

Predict this!

My hand goes out to strike her, but she leans out of harm's way. I immediately bend my elbow and pull my arm in, ramming the woman's head into my chest. Not a bright idea, but I can hold her long enough to either suffocate her or think of a way to beat her without killing her.

I just wish she'd stop punching me.

...Okay, this is getting painful and annoyin-

...

I instinctively let go as pain flies through my sides and stagger backwards.

No, I can't let her escape; I try to use my body to force her down, but she simply curls her body, sending me forward. On her back, she kicks her legs out, sending me flying. I land on my back as she tries to roll backwards. This would land her feet on my face or throat, but my speed allows me to grab her by the leg!

Yes, she's tiring more than I am!

I push forward with my bottom hand and pull back with my front hand, causing her to fall on me. She stops her body from hitting the dirt by using her hands to land. But I grab her thigh and push-

...

Why does this feel good in my hand?

My distraction allows Ms. Hong to knee me in the face with her opposite leg. Seeing that she is scrambling to her feet, I roll away from her to put distance between us.

I am looking at her body as she advances to me. She brings a leg back and is throws it forward, intending on kneeing me in the face again. I put my hand out and catch her leg by the thigh. Her arms lift up, so I lift my own arm above my head, blocking the downward strike that I cannot not see as I predicted this action of hers.

I step forward, pushing myself into her, and then lifting my hand from her thigh to her collar, grabbing it! My chance to turn this around! I slam her into the brick wall and push her across the surface. I begin running forward while holding her into the wall.

When I run out of wall, I pull her smaller body to the next closest thing, one of the remaining trees. The force of my slam causes her body to tear through the tree and I let go of her as my hand finally gives out. She continues flying back from the momentum, flipping her self in mid air so that her feet touch the ground and letting herself drag across it so that she skids to a halt.

As the tree that we tore through fell, I spin to create momentum and slam my foot into the upper half, kicking with the needed force to send it flying at Ms. Hong. The tree collides with something, but breaks in half in the middle, causing the two parts to fly diagonally to the side while continuing to fly away from me.

There she stands, weakened, battered, maybe even broken. But she is still standing, still wanting to fight.

And gathering Qi into her body!

Qi, a natural function of all living creatures. So if I use my natural wind controlling function which comes from me being a tengu, would that count as this battle intention the same?

Since they're both more natural than magic, I will assume yes for the time being. I mentally reach out to the wind and pull it in, gathering it around my own body. The wind picks up around me as I stand still.

She is spending more time on her own 'power-up' process than before hand, making the energy gathered into her body larger, thicker, and brighter. I do the same. The wind in and around me becomes stronger, rotates tighter and becomes more compressed as I pull in more force.

She opens her eyes and throws out her hands and her rainbow of life energy blasts outward toward me. In response, I release the violently contained wind.

While they are not opposite in properties, their appearances are antithesis to each other; my wind being transparent, while her Qi is all colors (except for black which is considered more of an absence of color).

The two supernatural but non-magical powers collide, stopping each other in their tracks and explode violently with such force that debris from the trees and wall fly away.

I dash forward as the smoke clears, knowing that I cannot let this chance go to waste. As I close in, I can see that she is waiting for the smoke to clear. My superior eye sight allows me to see her, she will not see me until it's too late.

I fly at her with a kick. She lifts her arms to stop my foot from connecting to her head or body...but I am simply too strong as the weight of my punch forces her arms to fall back. And even when cushioned by those arms...her body feels the weight of my strike.

She flies backwards one last time and lands on her back.

...

She does not get up, simply sitting there and breathing heavily.

...

I walk towards her, limping as my leg has its strength.

When I stand above her, I leave myself open, mentally preparing a counter attack...but she is not taking the initiative. She is still lying there, not trying to fight any more.

I have won.

...

But it was somehow...sad...seeing someone such as her lose.

...

How illogical, she was in my way. Why would I be upset with myself that she lost to me? Now that I get a better look at her...

Her facial structure is...appealing in appearance. Clearly, she keeps her body properly fed, not only maximizing its functions but also making the most of her body's structure. It gives her a structurally ideal form for a woman.

As a result, she has qualities that give me an odd sense of pleasure and satisfaction when I look at her...

Although the word I would use is "healthy," I suppose the best way I can describe her appearance to someone else is by referring to her as "beautiful" seeing that she fits that dictionary definition.

Perhaps I dislike ruining such a creature's image? This must be how a collector feels after stopping to realize just how beautiful a painting he destroyed looked to him.

...

She's clearly not a beast youkai, so it's not like she'll have as big of a problem healing from this. So I should not worry about her health.

...

But she'll be more comfortable if I didn't leave her out in the sun like this. So I'll her do this one service. I scoop her up in my arms and lift her.

...

Unlike Hatate, Ms. Hong shows no visible signs of having issue with me picking her up like embarrassment. Perhaps she has gained a degree of maturity in which she wouldn't be embarrassed about the thought of receiving pity from an enemy? Of course, there were many possible factors that could have been involved.

Whether she is too weak, injured, tired or composed, she says nothing. But seeing that her eyes are open and she is looking at me and at the what I am doing, she probably knows and understands my actions.

I look to see a chair right outside where the gate is-...was. She must have used it whenever her feet were tired or needed to sleep on the job. I carry the red haired woman to the chair and set her down in it. Since she's sitting, someone far off might think she's still alert and not notice her injuries.

...

Wait, did she just thank me? Somehow that's what it felt like...but I don't have any reason to believe she did. She didn't speak to me through her mind, she didn't speak it, she didn't even move her lips. So why would I think she'd thank me?

Perhaps it was a delusion conjured by my subconscious desire to mate with this woman? Regardless, she's alive and should remain so while I still have a job to do. So I should not waste any more time here-

And as if to signal that I am right in my assumption that I need to get going, my ears pick up someone approaching the Mansion's front door from the inside. If I stay here, I will have another immediate battle before my body can heal.

My eyes quickly scan the exterior of the mansion-

There! There's a door to the left several dozen yards and back. My run is awkward as I am tired and injured but I do not hesitate.

Upon reaching it, I grab the door's handle and turn it hoping that it is unlocked...to my relief it is. I push forward, opening the door, walk in and then close the door behind me.

Although the door has a lock on the inside, which I take full advantage of, I can assume that from its location on the handle itself that it is unlock-able using a key from the outside. Another item of lock I recall hearing about from the Kappa. That said, I would not want to risk staying here for long.

And so I walk deeper into the darkness of the mansion's interior. Looking back at my fight, if I really considered my control over wind to be as natural as my control my physical abilities, I should have relied on it more and less on hoping that my superior condition alone could deal with her superior combat skill. Alternatively, I could have just leaped out of the Qi blast's way instead of meeting it. This is something I needed to figure out and deal with whenever possible.

I notice that I am arriving at another door. Placing my ear up to it, I listen to see if I can hear anything...

...flapping...

Alright, I know I can expect someone to be in there...but it sounds like they're high up and far away. Hopefully they won't notice immediately that I am there. And so I slowly open the door...

And surprise takes me by the sight of a library that is bigger than the mansion was.

* * *

End of chapter:

Special Thanks to Kaiser and Shen for proof reading.

If there are any problems with this chapter, please inform me.


	6. Memento mori

Dozens upon dozens of rows of shelves reaching no shorter than several dozen meters, each one filled to the brim with books. There is no doubt in my mind that this was a library.

The room was lit up by suspended light orbs, making up for its lack of windows (although not entirely since natural light isn't the only reason to have windows). The floor was covered in red carpet.

And judging from my position, the room's open area looks to be roughly half a kilometer long, and a quarter of a kilometer wide. This can have easily be bigger than the Tengu Archive back on Youkai Mountain.

How many books were here? Even the walls themselves seem to have been reshaped to fit books in them.

I look up to see that the flapping of earlier was coming from someone putting away books on a shelf that was near the ceiling.

She has long, red hair standing at the end of the isle. She is wearing a black dress with white sleeves, has a small pair of black, bat-like wings on the sides of her head and a much larger pair sprouting from her back.

It would not be favorable to confront anyone with a quickly improvised plan, especially when I am still weakened from my fight with Ms. Hong. And so, I walk behind a shelf so that she would not see me should she look in my direction.

First thing, I need to know what the layout is. If I end up fighting here, I should know that much-Wait, what is this?

I take the book off the shelf and read its cover. "_Condensed reference to the five phases of Wu Xing," _it says_. _Interesting. I think I'll open the book and read the summary.

"Elemental magic of this branch derives power from the fairies and nature spirits, minimizing input while maximizing output. Each element has a corresponding day of the week. Monday is..."

It appears that the five elements of this category are Fire, Metal, Wood, Water and Earth. This is different from Gensokyo's normal five of Earth, Water, Wind, Fire and Void (Was it Void? I seem to recall it being called Sky, Heaven or Spirit. It's function remains the same regardless of the name, but it could become a hassle). However, it seems that Fire, Earth and Water are common between the two sets. Even down to the basic formula for manipulation.

I'll consider applying this information to my own magical practices. However, this is mostly just basics. It is a reference, after all.

After a few minutes, I finish reading the book and put it back onto its shelf and see that it's not the only grimoire here. In fact, all of the books on this shelf are grimoires. This presents an opportunity to me. With this many grimoires, it's clear that a magician or another type of magic-using being lives here. I should be able to mentally prepare myself for any of their spells if I read enough. In addition, if I do not need to fight a magician, I can learn some new spells, expanding my own arsenal.

...

Who knows how long I've been in the library; I had already lost track of time. Not a good thing seeing that I was on a rescue mission (albeit I volunteered for it). But thanks to sitting still, my body should be healed enough to-

My ears pick up a sound, I look up to see the woman I saw earlier now several yards away from me. On closer inspection, she had a comparatively more slender structure than Ms. Hong did, although her bust seemed to be roughly the same size-wait, why am I noticing that? Shouldn't I be more concerned that she spotted me?!

"Oh, a visitor? We rarely get visitors here in the library. My mistress is out, but her library is open to all who obey the rules," she asks. She does not seem to think I'm a threat. I should use this to my advantage.

"And the rules are?" I ask.

"Put all books back where you found them, or give them to me. Should you like to borrow a book, you must leave a book behind of similar value. Also, all experiments are to be performed within their appropriate safety guidelines. The safety sign is over there," she says as she points to a sign in a clear area.

"Understood. And you may be relieved to know that I had been following these rules ever since I got here," I say honestly as I have no intention of stealing any books from here.

"Anyways, I've got to go. These books won't put themselves away," she tells me with a smile which looks...abnormally beautiful for some reason. Now that I look at her, she is carrying a large stack of books. She seems like she needs help, as seen from her wobbliness. Perhaps I should help her?

"Would you like some help with that?" I ask.

"Y-you'd help me? Oh, thank you! You're such a gentleman!" The woman smiled when I asked. "The books over on Shelf 191 need to be transferred to Shelf 205."

I look to see a shelf with the label 191 on it. I simply walk up to it, stack a large number of books in my arms and follow the library assistant.

"So, what brought you to this library?"

Last time when addressed with that, I mentioned that I was on a rescue mission. The reaction was not a good one. So, I will not answer her directly.

"I was looking for something. I thought that reading through spell books would help me in looking for it."

"Was it of any help?"

"I don't know yet."

"Well, I hope it does become worth your while."

After she stops speaking, awkward silence lingers in the air. Perhaps if I start a conversation...if I immediately ask something along the lines of interrogation, it would make me suspicious. Now that I think about it, this room lacks life in it. It's just the two of us.

"I notice there's no one here. Is that normal?" I ask.

"Yes, unfortunately it's just myself and the mistress."

"You don't get lonely?" I ask. While I lack normally facial expression and come off as cold to most people, I am still a Tengu, and Tengu are social creatures, even if to a minor extent like myself. Even if I had no friends, I would probably still need social interaction of some sort on a regular basis (although I don't know if that's the case since I do have friends, albeit a small number).

"Yes, I suppose. But since the mistress puts me to work, I don't have too much time to dwell on that. But it makes the rare occasions when we get visitors here all the better. So stay as long as you want. If you need anything, don't hesitate to speak to me."

"Don't worry. I won't," I assure her.

After reaching the shelf which had the label 205, we began to place the books onto it, one by one. Upon being empty of books, we begin to walk back to shelf 191.

As we walk back, she holds her hands together, interlacing her fingers, behind her back. In front of me, she walks with that sway in her hips that most women tend to have. It's almost hypnotic for some reason. Probably because it's pronouncing her hips?

We each pick up a second set of books from shelf 191 and made another trek back to shelf 205.

"If you don't mind me asking, what type of youkai are you? You look like you'd be a beast from the forest, but you seem to dress more utilitarian than them."

"A Tengu," I respond.

"A heaven hound? You look more like a wolf," she points out. Finally! Someone who can tell the difference!

"Actually, the name supposedly referred to function, not appearance," I inform her.

"Interesting, you must be powerful individuals for gods to want to employ you," she said.

"Well, it is true that we are a powerful race."

"Let me guess, you're also a powerful member even for someone of your race. I can't imagine everyone in your race radiating as much power as you are." Usually I ignore or try to ignore compliments. But for some reason, I felt especially good when she said that.

"Well, I suppose so." It was true that I was among the better half of the populace in everything when it came to any common physical ability (except for the things only the women could do...and using shields).

As I follow her, I feel the need to glance at her strengthen. She's...just too...what is the word?

Wait, this might be a trick! I need make certain. I'm holding books, so I'm limited in the number of spells I can use...

Wait, there is a low level mental spell I can use. A spell that requires only proper thought process to activate. However, it only reveals surface thoughts to me.

...

_'Detect surface thoughts!'_ I think to myself. I complete the spell and cast it. If she's thinking anything, I will know it-

_"Oh yes, I'm going to tease him, and tease him and tease him,"_ I hear from her mind.

...

Tease; to make fun of or attempt to provoke someone in a playful way. What would she be wanting to provoke me to do? Or was she planning on making fun of me? If so, how would she see that as something important?

"If you could wait here for just a moment, I'll put these away," she said as she flew upward. Since she asked me to stay put, I will stay put. However, something tells me that something is up. To see if I can find any subtle hints that she's scheming something, I look up-

-her skirt?

I can feel myself freeze. I can feel the blood rushing to my face.

Unlike the time with Ms. Hong, I was not immediately struck in the face when looking at a woman's undergarments. I'm not sure how long I was looking before looked away. And not a moment too soon as the library assistant started her descent from the top of the shelf.

We've put the last of the books on the shelf. A fairly easy job well done, or so I hope. She snaps her head, causing her hair to flip to the side. Somehow, the action displayed before me is...mesmerizing? She twirls to face me with another bright smile.

"And that's the end of that. Care to join me for my break?" she asks.

"Huh, sure." Oh yes! She asked me what I am, I need to take this opportunity to ask her about the residents. "If you don't mind me asking, what sort of people live here? I've never seen a design like this except in pictures from the outside world."

"Oh, we mostly have fairies. But Meiling is a Chinese demon, two vampires, myself and my mistress. Oh yes, Meiling did adopt a human girl just recently."

Meiling must be the given name of Ms. Hong. But she adopted a human child? How abnormal for youkai behavior...then again, she is from China. Maybe they mentally develop differently. Or perhaps it was a moral decision.

"Does your mistress own the mansion?"

"Oh course, not. She's just close friends with the owner of the mansion. Even if she did, she spends every waking moment either studying or practicing magic so she has little time to manage anything in the mansion."

The only type of being that is that dedicated to magic that I know of are magicians, human or youkai.

"What of yoursel-" I stop mid sentence when I notice that she's much closer to me than I recall.

"You know, I need to repay such kindhearted and gentlemanly behavior," she informs me.

Wait, repay me? In that case, perhaps I can ask her about the missing Tengu without causing significant problems for myself?

...Her lips are against mine. I feel something soft and wet sliding across my tongue, caressing it. It makes me feel a sort of pleasure I've never felt before.

Wait, what's going on? What is she doing and why? Wait, our lips are together...I-is this kissing?!

She pulls away, saliva trailing between our tongues.

"Wha-what was that?" I demand.

"A kiss, silly. What, you never had a kiss before? That's so cute!"

Wait, cute?! I suppose that since my face is neither that of what woman tend to call "beautiful" nor is it like what people tend to call "manly," then I suppose that it is possible for me to have an appearance that is...well...neither of tho-

"Oh, don't think this is over. I can't very well be thanking a man with just a kiss."

"What do you mean?" I ask. Her hand is on my chest, gently sliding her soft hand up and down.

"Is this your first time?"

First time? First time what? Kissing? Yes, but people usually refer to that as a "first kiss," so she's probably referring to something else. Wait-

Wa-was she seducing me?! I-I don't know how to react! This is totally against my expectations! A woman showing interest sexual in me is...is...unbelievable! It defies everything my experiences and observations have taught me as a whole!

It doesn't add up. Women, from what I know of, normally don't try to mate with a man for simply helping them! And my face may be-wait, no. It might not even be my face she finds cute. What part about me is she-

She's rubbing her soft body against mine, she's caressing my chest-wait, when did she expose my chest? Now she's caressing my stomach?

"Amazing! Even if you don't look it, I can feel that you have a powerful core. You must be very strong," she cooed as she started licking my neck. I don't know how long it was before her lips were against mine again, our tongues coiling around each other.

This is wrong. I barely know this woman and we're-wait, I should be able to fight ba-...why can't I fight back? Am I still weak? I should have the strength to fight back!

But why does this feel so good? Why do I want to do this so much?

Her hand which is caressing my stomach lowers and-

She stops.

"What, you don't like it?" she asks, looking me in the eyes. "If you want, we can stop here."

She's offering to stop? Now she's offering to stop?

But...I want it!

I want it, I NEED IT!

I will not be denied this!

I take hold of the woman who offered herself to me, and I take a hold of my destiny! Even if she screams in pain or begs me to stop, I will not! I will do this!

...

This...this is...the greatest thing I have ever experienced.

I am...

I see it! I see Heaven!

...

I...I'm tired.

I...see...black.

* * *

The moment he gave into his instincts and gave up his reason, he had been defeated, undone, and ruined.

All for self-gratification, he wagered his soul.

And when she brought him into her room where she laid with him, he was never seen with breath again.

Bad Ending 1.

Re-try?

Yes yes yes/No no no

* * *

Author Notes:

This ending is dedicated to Demon Neko Shen and Zurocha. Thanks to Kaiserdude for proofreading it.

No, Sasuke will not be getting better from this...ever. Or at least not in this path he took. I'll continue this fic, but it will be ignoring this chapter's existence, thus having Sasuke go down a different path, thus surviving.

I had a whole bunch of other things to say about this chapter but...I forgot by the time I got this up. Hope you all enjoyed it regardless. In fact, I had a better sounding Authors note in my head when I first wrote this chapter.

As always, if you see anything excessively wrong (excluding Sasuke's death) then please inform me so I can deal with the problem.


	7. Chapter 6

Dozens upon dozens of rows of shelves reaching no shorter than several dozen meters, each one filled to the brim with books. There is no doubt in my mind that this was a library.

The room was lit up by suspended light orbs, making up for its lack of windows (although not entirely since natural light isn't the only reason to have windows). The floor was covered in red carpet.

And judging from my position, the room's open area looks to be roughly half a kilometer long, and a quarter of a kilometer wide. This can have easily be bigger than the Tengu Archive back on Youkai Mountain.

How many books were here? Even the walls themselves seem to have been reshaped to fit books in them.

I look up to see that the flapping of earlier was coming from someone putting away books on a shelf that was near the ceiling.

She has long, red hair standing at the end of the isle. She is wearing a black dress with white sleeves, has a small pair of black, bat-like wings on the sides of her head and a much larger pair sprouting from her back.

It would not be favorable to confront anyone with a quickly improvised plan, especially when I am still weakened from my fight with Ms. Hong. And so, I walk behind a shelf so that she would not see me should she look in my direction.

First thing, I need to know what the layout is. If I end up fighting here, I should know that much-Wait, what is this?

I take the book off the shelf and read its cover. _"Condensed reference to the five phases of Wu Xing,"_ it says. Interesting. I think I'll open the book and read the summary.

_"Elemental magic of this branch derives power from the fairies and nature spirits, minimizing input while maximizing output. Each element has a corresponding day of the week. Monday is..."_

It appears that the five elements of this category are Fire, Metal, Wood, Water and Earth. This is different from Gensokyo's normal five of Earth, Water, Wind, Fire and Void (Was it Void? I seem to recall it being called Sky, Heaven or Spirit. It's function remains the same regardless of the name, but it could become a hassle). However, it seems that Fire, Earth and Water are common between the two sets. Even down to the basic formula for manipulation.

I'll consider applying this information to my own magical practices. However, this is mostly just basics. It is a reference, after all.

After a few minutes, I finish reading the book and put it back onto its shelf and see that it's not the only grimoire here. In fact, all of the books on this shelf are grimoires. This presents an opportunity to me. With this many grimoires, it's clear that a magician or another type of magic-using being lives here. I should be able to mentally prepare myself for any of their spells if I read enough. In addition, if I do not need to fight a magician, I can learn some new spells, expanding my own arsenal.

I look through the shelf and something catches my eye, a journal. Perhaps it will give me an idea on what I'm dealing with. Let's see what it says...

"I asked the door guard to show me how to use Qi. Unfortunately, her teachings fell on tired hands. However, she had shown me something interesting. Using her very life force, she was able to make a low quality weapon. Since she was neither efficient using weapons nor was she good at making life force based weapons, she never pursued developing skill this further. Although I was unsuccessful in learning it as a Qi skill, I was able to fashion a fairly easy to learn method of reaching the same end point, although it seems that it will still require work to make the weapon better than low quality."

What follows are instructions on making such a weapon. It looks fairly simple and I have some of my own life force available, so I could try it out.

While my own Qi is not as weak as the average Tengu's, I never learned any real techniques for utilizing it since I was more interested in physical, mental and magical development (in hindsight, I probably should have learned how to use my life force to heal myself faster).

Qi is a field that the Yamabushi Tengu excel at, I'm certain that one of them could pick this up in a matter of seconds to pick up and years to master. I, on the other hand, would take several minutes to develop this skill and probably a millennium to master. But I'm not jealous of them. If it wasn't for the fact that I never lost in a fight to a printer before, I'd at most be slightly envious (which isn't jealousy).

However, I am intrigued. I look around to make sure that the woman who was flying earlier is not nearby before reading the instructions.

I place my free hand out, palm open, and focus my Qi into it. Then I follow the instructions on making it structured.

...

I feel the solidified Qi in my hand, and I grasp it. In my hand is a scimitar-

That broke and vaporized when I accidentally knocked the book shelf with it.

...

Yeah, I know what to do with this Qi skill now. But as I expected, it looks like it will require a lot of practice before it's combat worthy. And so, while I practice this technique, I will read more for this library seeing as I am still too weak physically for an all out fight. I put away the journal, grab another grimoire and begin to read all while reforming the scimitar.

Sometime into the second grimoire, I stopped practicing the Qi technique.

...

Judging from my own perception of time, it was probably between one half and one whole hour when I finished the third grimoire. It was in the middle of the fourth grimoire that I found something particularly interesting.

False memory charm, a spell that is used to implant fake memories into someone. This was something I could use. Say I had children (as unlikely as that seems), and I did not have the time needed to teach them anything nor did they have the luxury of undergoing any sort of schooling. I could alter their memories so that they knew magic, swordsman techniques, mathematics, how to speak, ext. Essentially, everything I know. Of course, I wouldn't add anything that would mess with their identities, so I would leave my subjective experiences out. This would mean they wouldn't have the memories of winning a swordsman tournament or losing Dai Shōgi games all the time.

Alright, let me see your component list...wow, that's a lot of items. But I think I have it all the materials on my person.

Since it requires so many components, I doubt I will want to use it more than once. It will be easier and faster if I store it in written form. If I really took an hour reading, I probably don't want to waste time learning the spell as that will take much longer.

I look up one last time to make sure that no one is near me and thus run the risk of being caught. My ears tell me that the red haired woman is still far away. Satisfied with this, I take out the only blank scroll I stored in my small pack and place it on the floor in front of me. I pull out a writing utensil and begin to write.

...

...this is taking a long time...and to imagine, it would take much longer to actually learn the spell...

...

After what felt like an hour of writing, I was finally finished. I had a scroll containing the False Memory charm with the specific information I wanted in it and could cast the spell at any time (although it was a one time use item). I even took the liberty of storing the information on all the spells I learned in the grimoires and the Qi weapon technique into it.

Who knows how long I've been in the library; I had already lost track of time. Not a good thing seeing that I was on a rescue mission (albeit I volunteered for it). But thanks to sitting still, my body should be healed enough to-

My ears pick up a sound, I look up to see the woman I saw earlier now several yards away from me. On closer inspection, she had a comparatively more slender structure than Ms. Hong did, although her bust seemed to be roughly the same size-wait, why am I noticing that? Shouldn't I be more concerned that she spotted me?!

"Oh, a visitor? We rarely get visitors here in the library. My mistress is out, but her library is open to all who obey the rules," she asks. She does not seem to think I'm a threat. I should use this to my advantage.

"And the rules are?" I ask.

"Put all books back where you found them, or give them to me. Should you like to borrow a book, you must leave a book behind of similar value. Also, all experiments are to be performed within their appropriate safety guidelines. The safety sign is over there," she says as she points to a sign in a clear area.

"Understood. And you may be relieved to know that I had been following these rules ever since I got here," I say honestly as I have no intention of stealing any books from here.

"Anyways, I've got to go. These books won't put themselves away," she tells me with a smile which looks...abnormally beautiful for some reason. Now that I look at her, she is carrying a large stack of books. She seems like she needs help, as seen from her wobbliness. Perhaps I should help her?

"Would you like some help with that?" I ask.

"Y-you'd help me? Oh, thank you! You're such a gentleman!" The woman smiled when I asked. "The books over on Shelf 191 need to be transferred to Shelf 205."

I look to see a shelf with the label 191 on it. I simply walk up to it, stack a large number of books in my arms and follow the library assistant.

"So, what brought you to this library?"

Last time when addressed with that, I mentioned that I was on a rescue mission. The reaction was not a good one. So, I will not answer her directly.

"I was looking for something. I thought that reading through spell books would help me in looking for it."

"Was it of any help?"

"I don't know yet."

"Well, I hope it does become worth your while."

After she stops speaking, awkward silence lingers in the air. Perhaps if I start a conversation...if I immediately ask something along the lines of interrogation, it would make me suspicious. Now that I think about it, this room lacks life in it. It's just the two of us.

"I notice there's no one here. Is that normal?" I ask.

"Yes, unfortunately it's just myself and the mistress."

"You don't get lonely?" I ask. While I lack normally facial expression and come off as cold to most people, I am still a Tengu, and Tengu are social creatures, even if to a minor extent like myself. Even if I had no friends, I would probably still need social interaction of some sort on a regular basis (although I don't know if that's the case since I do have friends, albeit a small number).

"Yes, I suppose. But since the mistress puts me to work, I don't have too much time to dwell on that. But it makes the rare occasions when we get visitors here all the better. So stay as long as you want. If you need anything, don't hesitate to speak to me."

"Don't worry. I won't," I assure her.

After reaching the shelf which had the label 205, we began to place the books onto it, one by one. Upon being empty of books, we begin to walk back to shelf 191.

As we walk back, she holds her hands together, interlacing her fingers, behind her back. In front of me, she walks with that sway in her hips that most women tend to have. It's almost hypnotic for some reason. Probably because it's pronouncing her hips?

We each pick up a second set of books from shelf 191 and made another trek back to shelf 205.

"If you don't mind me asking, what type of youkai are you? You look like you'd be a beast from the forest, but you seem to dress more utilitarian than them."

"A Tengu," I respond.

"A heaven hound? You look more like a wolf," she points out. Finally! Someone who can tell the difference!

"Actually, the name supposedly referred to function, not appearance," I inform her.

"Interesting, you must be powerful individuals for gods to want to employ you," she said.

"Well, it is true that we are a powerful race."

"Let me guess, you're also a powerful member even for someone of your race. I can't imagine everyone in your race radiating as much power as you are." Usually I ignore or try to ignore compliments. But for some reason, I felt especially good when she said that.

"Well, I suppose so." It was true that I was among the better half of the populace in everything when it came to any common physical ability (except for the things only the women could do...and using shields).

As I follow her, I feel the need to glance at her strengthen. She's...just too...what is the word?

Wait, this might be a trick! I need make certain. I'm holding books, so I'm limited in the number of spells I can use...

Wait, there is a low level mental spell I can use. A spell that requires only proper thought process to activate. However, it only reveals surface thoughts to me.

...

_'Detect surface thoughts!'_ I think to myself. I complete the spell and cast it. If she's thinking anything, I will know it-

_"Oh yes, I'm going to tease him, and tease him and tease him,"_ I hear from her mind.

...

Tease; to make fun of or attempt to provoke someone in a playful way. What would she be wanting to provoke me to do? Or was she planning on making fun of me? If so, how would she see that as something important?

"If you could wait here for just a moment, I'll put these away," she said as she flew upward. Since she asked me to stay put, I will stay put. However, something tells me that something is up. To see if I can find any subtle hints that she's scheming something, I look up-

-her skirt?

I can feel myself freeze. I can feel the blood rushing to my face.

Unlike the time with Ms. Hong, I was not immediately struck in the face when looking at a woman's undergarments. I'm not sure how long I was looking before looked away. And not a moment too soon as the library assistant started her descent from the top of the shelf.

We've put the last of the books on the shelf. A fairly easy job well done, or so I hope. She snaps her head, causing her hair to flip to the side. Somehow, the action displayed before me is...mesmerizing? She twirls to face me with another bright smile.

"And that's the end of that. Care to join me for my break?" she asks.

"Huh, sure." Oh yes! She asked me what I am, I need to take this opportunity to ask her about the residents. "If you don't mind me asking, what sort of people live here? I've never seen a design like this except in pictures from the outside world."

"Oh, we mostly have fairies. But Meiling is a Chinese demon, two vampires, myself and my mistress. Oh yes, Meiling did adopt a human girl just recently."

Meiling must be the given name of Ms. Hong. But she adopted a human child? How abnormal for youkai behavior...then again, she is from China. Maybe they mentally develop differently. Or perhaps it was a moral decision.

"Does your mistress own the mansion?"

"Oh course, not. She's just close friends with the owner of the mansion. Even if she did, she spends every waking moment either studying or practicing magic so she has little time to manage anything in the mansion."

The only type of being that is that dedicated to magic that I know of are magicians, human or youkai.

"What of yoursel-" I stop mid sentence when I notice that she's much closer to me than I recall.

"You know, I need to repay such kindhearted and gentlemanly behavior," she informs me.

Wait, repay me? In that case, perhaps I can ask her about the missing Tengu without causing significant problems for myself?

...Her lips are against mine. I feel something soft and wet sliding across my tongue, caressing it. It makes me feel a sort of pleasure I've never felt before.

Wait, what's going on? What is she doing and why? Wait, our lips are together...I-is this kissing?!

She pulls away, saliva trailing between our tongues.

"Wha-what was that?" I demand.

"A kiss, silly. What, you never had a kiss before? That's so cute!"

Wait, cute?! I suppose that since my face is neither that of what woman tend to call "beautiful" nor is it like what people tend to call "manly," then I suppose that it is possible for me to have an appearance that is...well...neither of tho-

"Oh, don't think this is over. I can't very well be thanking a man with just a kiss."

"What do you mean?" I ask. Her hand is on my chest, gently sliding her soft hand up and down.

"Is this your first time?"

First time? First time what? Kissing? Yes, but people usually refer to that as a "first kiss," so she's probably referring to something else. Wait-

Wa-was she seducing me?! I-I don't know how to react! This is totally against my expectations! A woman showing interest sexual in me is...is...unbelievable! It defies everything my experiences and observations have taught me as a whole!

It doesn't add up. Women, from what I know of, normally don't try to mate with a man for simply helping them! And my face may be-wait, no. It might not even be my face she finds cute. What part about me is she-

She's rubbing her soft body against mine, she's caressing my chest-wait, when did she expose my chest? Now she's caressing my stomach?

"Amazing! Even if you don't look it, I can feel that you have a powerful core. You must be very strong," she cooed as she started licking my neck. I don't know how long it was before her lips were against mine again, our tongues coiling around each other.

This is wrong. I barely know this woman and we're-wait, I should be able to fight ba-...why can't I fight back? Am I still weak? I should have the strength to fight back!

But why does this feel so good? Why do I want to do this so much?

Her hand which is caressing my stomach lowers and-

She stops.

"What, you don't like it?" she asks, looking me in the eyes. "If you want, we can stop here."

She's offering to stop? Now she's offering to stop?

I should stop, but I want it. I want her to keep going, I want to pounce on her, but I need to stop. I barely know anything about this woman, I could be attacked in the middle being 'busy,' and if I waste time here then who knows what might happen to the karasu! They're still unaccounted for!

I'm trying to say so, but my body won't let me say no for some reason! Wait, is she using some sort of mind ability on me? Or am I so frustrated that my body will deliberately disobey me even when it's clearly a trap!?

"Looks like you need to be persuaded-"

She pauses and looks down.

"...NO!" she shouts as she shoves herself away from me. "No, I can't do that!"

Wait, what? She seems terrified of me all of the sudden. Why?

Speaking of which, I feel less compelled by my desire to take this woman.

"And your face isn't even that cute!"

But you still think I'm cute...which isn't exactly the best of news seeing that I clearly am not good looking like the more muscular members of my race, nor am I a pretty boy that the women who don't like muscle bound males swoon over. This sums up my cuteness to be akin to that of a child's. Unfortunately, this means I have less of a normal face which would be accepted by women as being more masculine as that of a child's face unless said woman was a pedophile which would make her still not like me since I would be inevitably taller than said pedophile.

To summarize, if I cared about my appearance than that would have been a blow to my pride.

Oh wait, I'm only a little cute. I suppose that's explains why you're the first and only woman to actually mention that I'm cute. Or maybe you're the only one who thinks I'm cute by even the slightest margin?

Wait, I've regained rational thought! This woman is a...Devil! I've faced their kind before!

I draw my sword and swing at her. Of course since I'm so drained, she easily dodges it even when caught off guard.

"Eeek!" she screams.

Aside from the Tengu, devils are probably the only species of youkai in Gensokyo who as a whole produce members who equate to us in power besides Magicians who only seem to be able to match us when they are thoroughly prepared to fight a Tengu (other beings who equate to us individually are only exceptionally powerful members of their respective race). No, I'm not counting gods and ghosts as youkai.

Members of the Devil species are said to be able to leech on the strength, energy and soul of any non-devil whom they have intimate contact with. That was exactly what she was doing to me!

This is probably the worst-case situation for me, having to face a truly powerful enemy while crippled with only my magic left to save me.

"W-wait a minute, you're seriously still wanting to fight!? I-I'm not good with fights! Please don't hurt me!"

...What?

A devil is groveling before a crippled enemy? Was what I remembered from facing their species wrong? The monster I fought back then was an extremely arrogant individual. Wait, she said that she in particular wasn't good in fights...does that mean I came across the weakest member of their race?

"Koakuma, why haven't you finished him off? I know you're not nearly as powerful as the others of your kind, but this is pathetic." The new voice that confirmed my suspicions about the devil woman sounds much younger than the devil woman herself. I cannot tell which way it is coming from.

"Mistress Knowledge, it's impossible!" the woman in front of me says to the disembodied voice.

"You're a devil, such a thing should be simple for you."

"Besides a celestial, no sane woman would be willing to sleep with a man whose sword is as big as her arm!"

Wait, sword? Well, the long sword I am holding that I got from Ms. Hieda is bigger than her arm, but that is only in the blade's length and its flat side's width. The sharp side isn't.

Wait, what do swords have anything to do with this to begin with?

"...Isn't that normal for men?" the voice asks.

"Only in those stupid romance novels you read!" the devil woman shouts. Is she crying? My mind is formulating the possibility of how such a thing is possible. The devil woman clearly hates the romance novels the disembodied voice reads, so it probably has something to do with that. Perhaps it's the devil woman's mind abilities, or her beauty playing to my instincts as a male, but I pity her in spite of the fact that she tried to kill me just moments ago.

"Since his physical state is now worse than it is when he first entered, I suppose you did a good enough of a job, so I won't be punishing you."

The owner of the voice came out from behind one of the bookshelves, revealing herself to be a girl whose hair and eyes are purple and has many ribbons tied to her hair and other body parts. She is also wearing pajama-like clothing and a night-cap, both of which are lavender.

This purple and lavender girl looks to be young; probably three centuries in age...wait, do youkai magicians don't age at the same rate as most youkai?

The huge amount of magical energy that humans usually cannot gain even after decades of studying, lack of a Tengu's pointed ears, lack of the animal features that Beasts have, all on top of not smelling like any of those species; unless I am under a powerful illusion, then I am right in assuming she is a magician.

Even though my own raw magical power is greater than hers, which is probably due to me being older and a training addict, and also not taking into account that she may be using Wu Xing to compensate (not to mention that if she lives to her species' equivalent of what my age is currently, she will probably surpass me), she quite possibly has prepared ahead of time for fighting me.

Therefore I'll need to buy myself time to let my body recover.

"I notice that you're a magic user. I perform using arcane functions myself," I say to her, "And as I can see, this library is filled with knowledge on it."

This perks the magician's attention. She looks at me.

"I'll make a wager with you," I tell her.

She's not going to tell me about the people in this building if she's loyal. If I anger her, I'll lose precious time as she'll attack me immediately. So I'll need to bet for something she's willing to bet on. The information in the library would be a great asset to me, and it should all be copyable. I resume speaking.

"It looks like you spent 100 years on these books, that is including sleep, eating and socializing. That said, if I win against you in a duel of magic, I want a copy of all of the information in the library. And if I lose to you in this duel, I serve you as a servant for 100 plus years, including time needed for me to eat and sleep."

She did not seem to take offense. But she seemed to be studying me.

"100 years of labor for 100 years worth of reading material. How does that sound?" I ask her.

"Sure," she says almost immediately.

Wait, that's it? Was my wager too acceptable? If I don't get more time to recover the strength I lost to Koakuma's seduction, I will be at a disadvantage!

This isn't taking long enough...I need to increase the length of this conversation...

"Also, if I win...I get to sleep with your servant," I demand of the magician.

"W-WHAT!?" The devil woman asked in shock and fear. If she truly doesn't want to sleep with me, I suppose I shouldn't try to force myself on her, but no need to tell her that since the whole point of this is to buy myself time.

"Sure," the magician said. Again, she didn't spend even a second thinking about it.

...Wait, no. That wasn't supposed to happen!

"Wait, you're not going to argue that it's an unfair deal?" I ask.

"It's a fair deal, seeing as I'm going to win anyways. And the duel will begin now," the purple girl says as she-

-launches a giant fireball at me!?

No! I haven't had time to recover!

Whether I win or lose, THIS IS GONNA SUCK!

* * *

Author's note:

Thanks to Kaiser Dude for proofreading.

I was going to post this 3 hours earlier, but then I wanted to double check everything.

Hopefully you all prefer this chapter more than the other one. If you have any concerns, issues or criticisms with my spelling, grammar or portrayal of characters or then please voice them to me via PMing or reviewing.


	8. De fumo in flammam

To accept my wager when she would have the upper hand from her perspective; she is either confident, arrogant or stupid. She could have said "You're in no position to make demands."

...

I dodge to the side and behind a bookshelf, narrowly dodging a large blast of fire.

She is currently using fire, which means she's trying to trick me into using its weakness weapon, water. If she can trick me into using that, then she'd destroy me using Earth.

Understanding this, I turn the corner with my own sorcery prepared to be fired off.

As predicted, she was in the process of launching a conjured slab of rock at me.

"Black Wood - Growth"

A tree with black bark sprouts from the floor, falling apart instantly while as the rock hit it. Of course it failed to do anything more than halt the attack. This is a result of me not having practiced with the Wood Element before.

Before I can begin another counter spell, she follows up.

"Summoning of Flame - Agni!" she shouts out.

The summoning circle is complete and before her something that I could best describe as a foreign creature materialized. A red skinned and male humanoid, gaudily dressed, with seven hands, two heads, three legs and seven flaming tongues. In one hand, it holds a sword. It is mounted on a red ram who also is dressed with no function other than to glorify itself and its rider's appearances.

It raises its sword above its head, and with a glimmer of light, balls of fire fly out of it by the dozens. The fire balls themselves have no exact direction, and they fly in many different directions, mostly towards me.

I dodge to the side of the first several fireballs. However, this puts me in the path of some of the others. I twist my body, causing the flames to pass by me, but not without being so close that I can feel the air near me burning.

A second wave of fireballs come out of the sword. I use the brief gap in time between the two sets to leap behind a desk, using it as shield.

However, its catches on fire almost immediately. I begin to set a spell as a trap.

"Turn Spell." My next spell is set.

The desk that serves as my shield falls apart as it is incinerated. Agni is preparing a third wave of it's fire.

Out of the dozens of fireballs that were brought forth, only a fraction were about to hit me.

I feel my sleeve catch on fire as one of the flames was unaffected by deflection. However, Agni's roar in pain indicated that I was successful in causing all of the remaining fireballs that would have hit me to hit Agni itself.

Of course, if the fire could hurt the fire deity, then it must have a reduced affect. I wave my arm, weakening the flame on my sleeve enough to safely smother it. Looking back at Agni-

"OOF!" My back hits the chair which falls over from my weight.

I refocus to see the Ram. It's bringing its head down and sprinting! I can't let it hit me!

My roll to the side is a success.

If I go down this isle of shelves, it will follow me. While there will be no escape for me, neither will there be a room for it to dodge.

I immediately run down the isle in the opposite direction while beginning a spell incorporating Water. It didn't take long before Agni came to the mouth of the isle.

"Dark Water - Blast." I lift my hand and fire a concentrated burst of darkness-infused water.

Like all other darkness infused elements I use, Dark Water is that of the named element but has increased destructive properties. Induced fear and additional pain are also common side effects of being stuck by this form of magic.

So it isn't a sunrise that Agni's mount roared in pain and collapsed, causing Agni to fall with it. I fire off off three more blasts, while aiming for Agni, as fast as possible.

Were you trying to use your sword again? Good thing I acted when I did.

The blasts of Dark Water are causing him to scream out as his flames are doused. He dematerializes into the air, and I can no longer sense his presence. Whether he was destroyed or the link in the summoning was broken, the fact remains that he was defeated and disappeared. But it isn't over yet, is it?

"Summoning of Wood - Sylphae!" Knowledge shouts. The magician was already completing another summon, using my fight with Agni as a means to delay me.

Wait, I've heard a magician use that same creature as a Wind type. But the magician here uses it as a Wood type?

Why didn't I notice that before! The foreign Wood Element and the native Wind Element are the same (excluding the obvious differences). That said, if I'm fighting something that is weak to Wood, I could just use either my Dark Wind Element magic. Since there is no natural wind in this library, my oneness with the wind would not work as effectively as a combat means. I suppose I could use it to absorb electrical and redirect blasts, but I don't recall Ms. Knowledge having any lighting based spells.

From around the corner of the isle's end appears a something that looks like a fairy. She is female and almost transparent. Her body is both slender and graceful with large, glistening eyes and huge wings.

By substituting Fire for Metal when against Wood and substituting Wind for Wood when against Earth, I can conserve magical energy much better.

"Hell Fire - Fireball" Black flames are launched from my hands and at the fairy like woman. However, her reflexes allow her to change direction in mid air fast enough for her body to only be grazed by the flame.

Of course, the grazing itself is painful, as can be heard from her high pitch scream. She's clearly a tough one as she quickly forces herself to stop and flies upward while producing wi-wood power.

On closer inspection, it truly isn't wind. However, that doesn't change that I need to use Fire against her. I begin charging the magical energy while speaking the arcane incantation and making hand motions.

She begins launching leaves from her being, a large number of fast, magically charged leaves.

"Hell Fire - Wall of Fire." I conjure a thirty meter by thirty meter wall of black flame in the path of storm of leaves.

My ears pick up a sound, below me? When did she drop from that high altitude?!

She reaches out with her hand as energy spirals in her palm. I reach out with my own hand, conjuring another Hell Fire spell.

Before her hand palm can hit my stomach, my longer arms allows my own palm to to slam into her head, but it's still too close for me to avoid the contained Wood energy!

"Hell Fire - Fireball," I speak.

As her Wood magic tears at my stomach, my hand launches the burst of destructive energy into the woman's face. As I stagger back, the wind youkai screeches since her head is being set ablaze fire by the black flame.

I place a hand on my bleeding stomach wound. I should be able to heal from this, but given my lack of physical energy, I won't heal immediately. I'll need-

"Dual Summoning - Water and Metal!" It was the young voice of the magician, again.

I can't see her, and she probably has a general idea on where I am. I need to figure what to do to counter act the next two summons she throws at me.

"Princess Undine! Silver Dragon!"

And that is my message to flee away from where I can sense the two significantly large magical energies.

It takes me awhile of weaving between book shelves, but I can tell that I'm making progress in putting distance between myself and them.

I come to a new area which somehow feels different from the rest of the library. I couldn't put my finger on it...the only thing that remotely smelled like this was my parents' bedroom.

"Dark Wind Summon - Air Boar," I call out. In front of me appears a boar. We, the Tengu, used to have many boars like this. I am surprised to know that I may need it now.

"Off you go, find a go place to hide until you can ambush either the Metal summon, the Water summon or the magician I am fighting."

While I would not say that this boar is intelligent, it is smart enough to understand me.

As it leaves, I begin to prepare two spells as I search the area for geographical advantage, one Hell Fire Spell and one Black Earth Spell.

Wait, what's this on the floor?

Upon closer inspection, there is a spell symbol engraved onto the floor as if to insure that the spell could be used multiple times for years on end. This particular spell requires that someone puts magic into it to activate it. That said, this spell isn't a trap, but rather a trigger point.

Analyzing the structure of the spell, it's supposed to conjure something in the ground (or ground like area) for the purpose of summoning it. Then the conjured object performs a specific task.

Perhaps she intended to be standing here and cast the spell on me.

"There you are! Udine, Silver Dragon, kill him!" I turn and see that the purple girl has found me. She is being flanked by a woman who somehow looks like she's made of water yet is still fleshy, and what appears to be a typical dragon with silver skin.

"Black Earth - Magic Stone," I say. I begin transmuting the ground, black pebbles form in front of me and fly out at the water woman whom I assume is Udine, striking her hard. I follow up by casting my other prepared spell at the Silver Dragon as it flies at me.

"Hell Fire - Blast." The flame hits the dragon's face directly, causing it to crash into the ground and twitch from the pain.

The magician raised her hand and spoke another incantation.

"Earth - Rage Trilithon!" Yellow energy formulated in front of her. It began to condense into a great number of orbs. Although they were made of energy they were a solid as strong rock, the number itself I did not bother to count as I was too busy preparing my own spells to counter it.

"Dark wind - Whirlwind." The wind I normally use as a natural power of a Tengu is clear. This wind however is dark. It circulates and produces a powerful cyclone roughly 10 feet wide at the base, 30 feet wide at the top and 30 feet tall. I can feel my body taking the excess wind created into itself. The whirlwind cuts apart the solidified energy. Miss knowledge is already preparing a counter attack.

If I had trained in that spell more, I would have torn through her with a larger whirlwind. But my stock in my own non-magical wind manipulation made my training in the Dark Wind Element less than useful. It wasn't a bad thing under most circumstances, but the lack of training makes for waste of magical energy. Because of that, I might run out of magic at this rate.

Wait, that spell on the floor is so prepared that it's only needs a little bit of magical energy to be used.

I send a small amount of my magic into the circle and aim my finger at Ms. Knowledge. Since the summoned object should not a restorative or a buffer, I know the magician will not receive significant help from the summoned object.

"Patchouli's Purple Tentacles!" I call out, casting the spell.

I find myself being hit in the chest by a brightly colored, magical blast that has no spoken name and find myself landing on my back. This accumulation of injuries is a sign of my weakening. But thankfully, I had already finished casting the spell.

"What?" Knowledge's eyes widen as she says this. The ground beneath her feet breaks, and out sprouts several long, purple tentacles. They begin grabbing her.

"No!" she screams as she struggles against them. Of course, given how often I hear women complain about slimy objects, her hysteria is expected given how slimy the tentacles grabbing her are.

I don't know how long that spell will hold her, but I hope it will hold her long enough for me to destroy her two servants and formulate a counter against her. I start to prepare another Black Earth spell as I take off to the nearest-

I leap out of the way of a high pressure, water blast. The water woman is resuming her attack run and fires off high pressure water streams, cutting through the floor; as she flies after me, I run and leap out of her path.

"Quit dodging!" Udine orders. You know, that's such a stupid thing to say. If you're trying to kill someone, why would they want to hold still for you?

I run down another isle, and as predicted, she follows. It it thanks to that prediction that I am prepared as I cast a Black Earth spell.

"Wall of Stone!" Out of the floor, a wall of black rock shoots upward and hits the Water spirit, inflicting pain and injury to it.

She'll probably survive that, so I need to put as much distance between myself and her as possible so that I can begin setting up another set of spells. And so I run down the isles as I had been doing before, turning past a corner.

...

I turn my head as I sense something go off.

It is a spell, but setup as a trap. I must have triggered it, but the problem is _what_ have I set off?

I feel an increase of heat in front of me, I turn my head see what my ill luck has wrought. There is a wall in front of me. And judging from the magic formula, sound of flames and heat, there must be one behind me, one to my left, one to my right, and one above me. The spell "Wall of Fire," repeated 5 times. They were positioned specifically to box me in.

An easy solution. I just need to use another Dark Water spell to destroy it.

"Dark Water, Drago-"

The words 'Anti-Water' scream in my head.

What!? I'm being hit by a pressure blast?! My own water-synced magic is burning! It isn't finishing its formation! I'm being struck at by my own spell!?

The fire walls are increasing in heat, I can't formulate the spells!

They're closing in on me! It burns! IT BURNS!

"Maximum strength; Autumn Blade!" a young, feminine voice speaks.

As my skin and clothes burn and air is robbed from my lungs by the flame, I feel something cutting into my back sharply. It hurts!  
...

The lower half of my body; it's burnt and completely cut off from the rest of me. Being a youkai, I'm not going to die with an injury like this. The last time I had lost the lower half of my body, I had regrown the whole section by start of the morning after.

However, I do not have that luxury. And I'll heal even quicker if I can get to my body and reconnect it myself.

Wait, buzzing noises from above!

A metal blade is coming down on me. Damn it, body; MOVE! Roll away! ROLL AWAY!

It's cutting into my face! It's cutting into my head!

It hurts! IT HURTS!

It hu-

...

...

I can no longer feel.

* * *

Like a feral animal, he was outsmarted...

His tricks allowed him to survive for a short while...

But now those tricks led to his untimely tragedy when used against him by the more cunning.

Bad Ending 2.

Re-try?

Yes yes yes/No no no

* * *

**Author's notes:**

This Bad ending is dedicated to Kaiser Dude and Vulcan.

Hopefully this death isn't too graphic for the T rating. Of course, something similar happened in Dragon Ball Z and that's considered a kid's show so I'm probably being paranoid.

If anyone is wondering, Patchouli and Sasuke are NOT using Spellcards for this, although many of the spells Patchouli uses should look familiar.

I had almost a page worth of things to say about this chapter. But honestly, it was mostly dumb, so I didn't bother posting much of it. Hopefully you enjoyed it all the same.

In other news; Someone on Let's Danmaku suggested we use D&D as a means to determine how we have our original characters interact combat wise in a roleplay. Regardless of whether I join in this or not, I am curious about something...I set up a poll in regards to Sasuke's moral and ethical alignment. If you have the extra ten seconds, filling it out would be appreciated. It's on my profile page.

If you have any concerns or problems about this chapter, please inform me. And thanks for reading.


	9. Chapter 7

To accept my wager when she would have the upper hand from her perspective; she is either confident, arrogant or stupid. She could have said "You're in no position to make demands."

...

I dodge to the side and behind a bookshelf, narrowly dodging a large blast of fire.

She is currently using fire, which means she's trying to trick me into using its weakness weapon, water. If she can trick me into using that, then she'd destroy me using Earth.

Understanding this, I turn the corner with my own sorcery prepared to be fired off.

As predicted, she was in the process of launching a conjured slab of rock at me.

"Black Wood - Growth"

A tree with black bark sprouts from the floor, falling apart instantly while as the rock hit it. Of course it failed to do anything more than halt the attack. This is a result of me not having practiced with the Wood Element before.

Before I can begin another counter spell, she follows up.

"Summoning of Flame - Agni!" she shouts out.

The summoning circle was complete and before her was something that I could best describe as a foreign creature has materialized. A red skinned and male humanoid, gaudily dressed, with seven hands, two heads, three legs and seven flaming tongues. In one hand, it holds a sword. It is mounted on a red ram who is also dressed with no function other than to glorify itself and its rider's appearances.

It raises its sword above its head, and with a glimmer of light, balls of fire fly out of it by the dozens. The fire balls themselves have no exact direction, and they fly in many different directions, mostly towards me.

I dodge to the side of the first several fireballs. However, this puts me in the path of some of the others. I twist my body, causing the flames to pass by me, but not without being so close that I can feel the air near me burning.

A second wave of fireballs come out of the sword. I use the brief gap in time between the two sets to leap behind a desk, using it as shield.

However, its catches on fire almost immediately. I begin to set a spell as a trap.

"Turn Spell." My next spell is set.

The desk that serves as my shield falls apart as it is incinerated. Agni is preparing a third wave of it's fire.

Out of the dozens of fireballs that were brought forth, only a fraction were about to hit me.

I feel my sleeve catch on fire as one of the flames was unaffected by deflection. However, Agni's roar in pain indicated that I was successful in causing all of the remaining fireballs that would have hit me to hit Agni itself.

Of course, if the fire could hurt the fire deity, then it must have a reduced affect. I wave my arm, weakening the flame on my sleeve enough to safely smother it. Looking back at Agni-

"OOF!" My back hits the chair which falls over from my weight.

I refocus to see the Ram. It's bringing its head down and sprinting! I can't let it hit me!

My roll to the side is a success.

If I go down this isle of shelves, it will follow me. While there will be no escape for me, neither will there be a room for it to dodge.

I immediately run down the isle in the opposite direction while beginning a spell incorporating Water. It didn't take long before Agni came to the mouth of the isle.

"Dark Water - Blast." I lift my hand and fire a concentrated burst of darkness-infused water.

Like all other darkness infused elements I use, Dark Water is that of the named element but has increased destructive properties. Induced fear and additional pain are also common side effects of being stuck by this form of magic.

So it isn't a sunrise that Agni's mount roared in pain and collapsed, causing Agni to fall with it. I fire off off three more blasts, while aiming for Agni, as fast as possible.

Were you trying to use your sword again? Good thing I acted when I did.

The blasts of Dark Water are causing him to scream out as his flames are doused. He dematerializes into the air, and I can no longer sense his presence. Whether he was destroyed or the link in the summoning was broken, the fact remains that he was defeated and disappeared. But it isn't over yet, is it?

"Summoning of Wood - Sylphae!" Knowledge shouts. The magician was already completing another summon, using my fight with Agni as a means to delay me.

Wait, I've heard a magician use that same creature as a Wind type, but the magician here uses it as a Wood type?

Why didn't I notice that before! The foreign Wood Element and the native Wind Element are the same (excluding the obvious differences). That said, if I'm fighting something that is weak to Wood, I could just use either my Dark Wind Element magic. Since there is no natural wind in this library, my oneness with the wind would not work as effectively as a combat means. I suppose I could use it to absorb electrical and redirect blasts, but I don't recall Ms. Knowledge having any lighting based spells.

From around the corner of the isle's end appears a something that looks like a fairy. She is female and almost transparent. Her body is both slender and graceful with large, glistening eyes and huge wings.

By substituting Fire for Metal when against Wood and substituting Wind for Wood when against Earth, I can conserve magical energy much better.

"Hell Fire - Fireball" Black flames are launched from my hands and at the fairy like woman. However, her reflexes allow her to change direction in mid air fast enough for her body to only be grazed by the flame.

Of course, the grazing itself is painful, as can be heard from her high pitch scream. She's clearly a tough one as she quickly forces herself to stop and flies upward while producing wi-wood power.

On closer inspection, it truly isn't wind. However, that doesn't change that I need to use Fire against her. I begin charging the magical energy while speaking the arcane incantation and making hand motions.

She begins launching leaves from her being, a large number of fast, magically charged leaves.

"Hell Fire - Wall of Fire." I conjure a thirty meter by thirty meter wall of black flame in the path of storm of leaves.

My ears pick up a sound, below me? When did she drop from that high altitude?!

She reaches out with her hand as energy spirals in her palm. I reach out with my own hand, conjuring another Hell Fire spell.

Before her hand palm can hit my stomach, my longer arms allows my own palm to to slam into her head, but it's still too close for me to avoid the contained Wood energy!

"Hell Fire - Fireball," I speak.

As her Wood magic tears at my stomach, my hand launches the burst of destructive energy into the woman's face. As I stagger back, the wind youkai screeches since her head is being set ablaze fire by the black flame.

I place a hand on my bleeding stomach wound. I should be able to heal from this, but given my lack of physical energy, I won't heal immediately. I'll need-

"Dual Summoning - Water and Metal!" It was the young voice of the magician, again.

I can't see her, and she probably has a general idea on where I am. I need to figure what to do to counter act the next two summons she throws at me.

"Princess Undine! Silver Dragon!"

And that is my message to flee away from where I can sense the two significantly large magical energies.

It takes me awhile of weaving between book shelves, but I can tell that I'm making progress in putting distance between myself and them.

I come to a new area which somehow feels different from the rest of the library. I couldn't put my finger on it...the only thing that remotely smelled like this was my parents' bedroom.

"Dark Wind Summon - Air Boar," I call out. In front of me appears a boar. We, the Tengu, used to have many boars like this. I am surprised to know that I may need it now.

"Off you go, find a go place to hide until you can ambush either the Metal summon, the Water summon or the magician I am fighting."

While I would not say that this boar is intelligent, it is smart enough to understand me.

As it leaves, I begin to prepare two spells as I search the area for geographical advantage, one Hell Fire Spell and one Black Earth Spell.

Wait, what's this on the floor?

Upon closer inspection, there is a spell symbol engraved onto the floor as if to insure that the spell could be used multiple times for years on end. This particular spell requires that someone puts magic into it to activate it. That said, this spell isn't a trap, but rather a trigger point.

Analyzing the structure of the spell, it's supposed to conjure something in the ground (or ground like area) for the purpose of summoning it. Then the conjured object performs a specific task.

Perhaps she intended to be standing here and cast the spell on me.

"There you are! Undine, Silver Dragon, kill him!" I turn and see that the purple girl has found me. She is being flanked by a woman who somehow looks like she's made of water yet is still fleshy, and what appears to be a typical dragon with silver skin.

"Black Earth - Magic Stone," I say. I begin transmuting the ground, black pebbles form in front of me and fly out at the water woman whom I assume is Undine, striking her hard. I follow up by casting my other prepared spell at the Silver Dragon as it flies at me.

"Hell Fire - Blast." The flame hits the dragon's face directly, causing it to crash into the ground and twitch from the pain.

The magician raised her hand and spoke another incantation.

"Earth - Rage Trilithon!" Yellow energy formulated in front of her. It began to condense into a great number of orbs. Although they were made of energy they were a solid as strong rock, the number itself I did not bother to count as I was too busy preparing my own spells to counter it.

"Dark wind - Whirlwind." The wind I normally use as a natural power of a Tengu is clear. This wind however is dark. It circulates and produces a powerful cyclone roughly 10 feet wide at the base, 30 feet wide at the top and 30 feet tall. I can feel my body taking the excess wind created into itself. The whirlwind cuts apart the solidified energy. Miss knowledge is already preparing a counter attack.

If I had trained in that spell more, I would have torn through her with a larger whirlwind. But my stock in my own non-magical wind manipulation made my training in the Dark Wind Element less than useful. It wasn't a bad thing under most circumstances, but the lack of training makes for waste of magical energy. Because of that, I might run out of magic at this rate.

Wait, that spell on the floor is so prepared that it's only needs a little bit of magical energy to be used.

I send a small amount of my magic into the circle and aim my finger at Ms. Knowledge. Since the summoned object should not be a restorative or a buffer, I know the magician will not receive significant help from the summoned object. And if it's offensive, then my gamble was worth it.

"Patchouli's Purple Tentacles!" I call out, casting the spell.

I find myself being hit in the chest by a brightly colored, magical blast that has no spoken name and find myself landing on my back. This accumulation of injuries is a sign of my weakening. But thankfully, I had already finished casting the spell.

"What?" Knowledge's eyes widen as she says this. The ground beneath her feet breaks, and out sprouts several long, purple tentacles. They begin grabbing her.

"No!" she screams as she struggles against them. Of course, given how often I hear women complain about slimy objects, her hysteria is expected given how slimy the tentacles grabbing her are.

I don't know how long that spell will hold her, but I hope it will hold her long enough for me to destroy her two servants and formulate a counter against her. I start to prepare another Black Earth spell as I take off to the nearest-

I leap out of the way of a high pressure, water blast. The water woman is resuming her attack run and fires off high pressure water streams, cutting through the hard wooden floor. As she flies after me, I run and leap out of her path.

"Quit dodging!" Undine orders. You know, that's such a stupid thing to say. If you're trying to kill someone, why would they want to hold still for you?

I run down another isle, and as predicted, she follows. It it thanks to that prediction that I am prepared as I cast a Black Earth spell.

"Wall of Stone!" Out of the floor, a wall of black rock shoots upward and hits the Water spirit, inflicting pain and injury to it.

She'll probably survive that, so I need to put as much distance between myself and her as possible so that I can begin setting up another set of spells. Speaking of which, I should have attacked Knowledge while the tentacles were subduing her.

I run down the isles as I had been doing before, turning past a corner.

...

I turn my head as I sense something go off.

It is a spell, but setup as a trap. I must have triggered it, but the problem is _what_ have I set off?

I feel an increase of heat in front of me, I turn my head see what my ill luck has wrought. There is a wall in front of me. And judging from the magic formula, sound of flames and heat, there must be one behind me, one to my left, one to my right, and one above me. The spell "Wall of Fire," repeated 5 times. They were positioned specifically to box me in.

An easy solution. I just need to use another Dark Water spell to destroy it.

No, a Water spell is exactly what she expects me to use. And so she'll probably have set up some sort of trap based on defeating Water, like a Wood spell to absorb the Water spell or an Earth spell to counter act it and be fueled by the fires of the Fire spell.

That said, she also probably knows that I'll counter with its weakness weapon and prepared specifically for that. If that is the case, then I truly can't escape as Fire will defeat it or absorb it.

If I make a hasty decision, I'm liable for making a miscalculation which will result in my defeat or even my death. My miscalculation to my superior ability being enough to overcome the trained guardsman results in me being too injured to fight at my peak here. My lack of suspicion of Koakuma allowed her to drain almost all of my physical strength, and my fleeing when Knowledge was attacked by the purple tentacles has me lose what may have been the one chance at ending this fight before it turns into a drawn out endurance contest. I cannot let myself make such a mistake again.

Simplified, I need to put more thought into my actions.

Looking at it, if I fight Element magic with Element magic here, she probably will kill me since it's her specialty.

But magic is not limited to the Elements; regardless of which set of elements you follow, sometimes you can use categories that are structured differently. Although one can claim that my "Detect surface thoughts" spell is a Void spell, the fact is that it isn't. If someone who strictly follows the element principle and wants to use it, they have to use the Void, but I am not strictly following the that principle.

When one looks at it in this perspective, there are many spells one can use without fear of complications because of the Element systems.

Of course, out of all the spells I know, only one can get me out of this.

...

"Magic, a wonderful thing," I speak to Ms. Knowledge, wherever she is hiding. I begin moving my hand as if I was writing the character "mu" on an imaginary medium.

"With it, the physically weak animals can become as powerful as the youkai who prey on them. And with it, the youkai magician can go from being as weak as a fairy to as powerful as an Oni."

As I speak, I rely on my ears to tell me if she is approaching. She will be if she is curious about what I am saying. Of course, this would be less than ideal if she had a long ranged spell or a remote casting prepared.

The vibration in the ground, I can tell that she is to my left some dozen feet away.

I need to only sacrifice the smallest speck of iron to use this spell. And the steel blade on my back contains such material. I wave my hands for the purpose of the casting the spell and speak its effect.

The preparations are complete, and I trigger the spell-

"So let us see what happens when we turn that magic off."

-by speaking its name.

"Anti Magic field."

There is no glorious explosion, no odd screech sound with the shattering of glass, no odd static accompanied by vibrations, no blackness, and no fizzling.

Like life in nature, the elemental power that would have killed me is killed without a glorious end. A death as silent as a ninja's assassination. And as the magic is rendered to being little more than sub-elemental particles, before me stands the shocked devil woman.

I give no quarter to her. Even in my weakened state, I am still faster than her. She is engulfed by my field that renders magic to zero worth.

She tries to cast a spell, but nothing happens. Such is expected when all magic in an area is nullified.

Wait...I can feel my body's strength returning! It's slow, but not stagnant like it was before. Delayed reaction? No...it started about the time I activated my Anti-magic field. Which means there is a good chance that a spell was used on me to keep my physical strength from returning.

If the spell requires concentration to use, all I have to do is knock you hard enough and the spell will break!

(This is the second time today, why am I physically hitting beautiful women? I hope that, if by the off-chance that I get married, I do not become an abusive husband.)

Koakuma is terrified, but I do not halt as I slam my hand into the side of her neck, aimed specifically to knock her out.

She collapses to the ground.

As my Anti-magic field deactivates, I can feel that my strength is returning, albeit still slowly. With Koakuma knocked unconscious, her remote strength draining spell has disappeared as I had hoped.

One down...three more to go.

"There you are!" I hear the water summon speak. I turn my head to see her down on the other end of the isle.

She is flying in my direction. I begin to make hand movements for my trap. I am already finished casting it when Undine fires her water attack at me.

"Turn Spell."

Undine screeches as I cut her in two with her own high-pressure stream of water, and grazing the skin of the Silver

While the water will serve to heal her, the pressure damage is enough to make the wound stay open. The Silver Dragon flies past her and at me, but I am able to cast spells faster thanks to removing Koakuma's interference.

"Black Lightning - Chain!" The initial strike is nearly identical to my standard Black Lighting Spell aside from being stronger, but that is just the initial strike. The spell's lighting jumps from one target to the next after that, doing roughly half the amount of damage.

The metal on the body conducts the electricity. The body of water conducts the electricity. Both Undine and the Silver Dragon scream and roar in pain respectively, the latter hits the ground. I leap and roll to the side to dodge the dragon as momentum carries it across the ground.

Undine quickly picks herself up only to be rammed by the boar I had summoned.

Since I an inefficient in both Dark Wind and Black Wood, I will let my summoned beast deal with the water princess. I turn to see the Silver Dragon getting back on its feet.

I am already making the needed hand movements, but the dragon is already closing the distance. I ignore the pain and extend my hand as its claws impale me.

"Hell Fire - Fireball," I say. The explosion of flame is a direct hit.

...

...

I open my eyes to find myself staring at the ceiling of the library. I can tell that I have several open wounds and am on my back.

Tilting my head to the left, I can see that the Silver Dragon is on the ground, disintegrating. Tilting my head to the right, I see the boar I summoned, approaching me.

It looks worse for wear with so many cuts on its body. It looks like it can fall apart at any moment.

"I'll reward you this is over," I say as I pull out my magical energy from it, making its position here no longer sustainable and thus dispelling the summon.

The boar poofs and disappears, leaving black air behind which breaks apart into nothingness.

I stay there on the ground, biding my time until I am either healed enough or cannot wait any longer for the magician to-

I hear her foot steps, and so I get on to my feet. I turn my head as seen the familiar sight of lavender pajamas.

The purple haired girl, she looks...terrified? Shocked? Her clothing seems ruffled, like she was in a close-quarters fight. She is also covered in slime and reeks of something awful.

"Whoever Patchouli is must have been a genius to create a spell that could be used so easily," I comment. Her facial expression turns from shock to anger.

"Flattery will get you nowhere, cur. I did not invent that spell just so that my enemies could use it to stall me in a fight."

So Patchouli is her name. Is that Patchouli Knowledge or Knowledge Patchouli?

"Your familiar has been dealt with, your summoned servants defeated, and your traps destroyed. Are you earnest to quit?" I ask.

"Never!" she screams. Her hand motions appear similar to what I make when casting a Hell Fire spell. Upon recognizing this, I begin to to formulate a counter spell in my head and make the hand motions accordingly.

I may be at risk of burning out my body, but my hand movements are faster.

"Fire - Radiance!" This fire spell is much like the attack that the Agni used earlier; its primary difference is that this spell has many times more the number of fire balls. I slam my right foot into the floor and drag it back as part of the somatic component. At the same time, I finish the hand motions for my counter spell.

"Dark Water - Flood!" Black liquid that functions identically to water spews out of the ground in large quantities as a fountain of water is between me and the fire spell; it acts as a shield and dousing all of the red energy.

Wooden pikes sprout from under the water, one impaling my leg!

Water feeds Wood!

Within seconds, the flooded library transforms into something much...greener. Plants and trees are sprouting from under the black water.

She's using my spell to fuel hers! The plants are producing the essence of the Wood Element, and she's taking it into herself to cast a Wood Spell!

"Wood - Triple Heightened Sylphae Horn!"

"Counter Spell - Heightened, Quickened Fire Ball!"

The Wood spell is too strong to be overcome even by the darkness infused magic which contained its very weakness. The wood is set ablaze, and the contained energy is unleashed as they press into each other.

The resulting explosion rocked the library.

I fly backwards, I can feel my back hitting something.

"I'm not done yet! Earth - Trilithon Shake!"

Rocks are flying at me. No, not rocks...boulders are flying at me!

I will not waste my time trying to beat it with poorly constructed Dark Wind or, even worse, Black Wood. This leaves me with the option of scrambling to my feet and leaping out of the way.

The boulders fly past me, wrecking the floor and shelf around where I was. I should be safe-

The shelf I leaped behind busts as a boulder comes crashing through it, striking me!

Yeah, I should have figured that they could be aimed.

I feel myself hit the floor. My arm is mangled by it being the part hit directly by the boulder.

...Are there no more boulders?

"Water - Bury In Lake!"

"Turn Spell!"

The girl is struck 8 times by her own ice...but her spell is already cast and is not deactivating. I grunt in pain as I feel myself being hit by the cold spell bolts. Many, I am being hit many times. I cannot count the strikes.

Then silence.

...

"Eh...ueh..." I weakly shift my eyes to see that Knowledge is on the floor, struggling to lift herself up.

"Ue...uh...huh! Ehe! UH!" She's wheezing, gasping for air, and coughing.

"Damned Asthma, not now of all times!"

She's sick? But she was fighting me...more effectively than any other magician I have fought before (looking at magic ability alone that is).

I'm not paying attention to how I got to my feet, but I found myself approaching Knowledge's injured and sick body.

"Please wait!" Koakuma dashes out in front of me, blocking my line between.

"I know the Mistress is cruel and unusual sometimes, but..."

I place my hand on Koakuma's forehead. She knows that if I was prepared to cast an offensive spell like this, then she could very well die.

However...

I was using the touch proximity to enhance the power of the spell I used to detect thoughts.

But to find out everything I wanted to know...to find out about the kidnapped Tengu...I needed to see into the memories of this individual.

...

_A little girl born from the womb of a woman who questioned the belief system of the day. This was because her religion provided supernatural and beneficial results, while the commonly accepted religion provided nothing._

_The woman became a sort of immortal and offered her husband the same kind of alteration. Their child was born afterward._

_But the birth of the daughter resulted in the death of the mother, whose body was as weak as a human's._

_...the girl could use magic. One of the first things she did was summon the devil Koakuma._

_There were people against the existence of mages, and some of them went after the girl's father, killing him. Koakuma and the young mage fled upon finding out about the father's death, evading the extremists._

_They were taken in by a man, a youkai called...a vampire...and became friends with his eldest daughter._

_..._

_Wait, these are constructed, I want Koakuma's real memories._

_..._

_This woman was powerless. She had been the runt ever since she had been born. Her life had been a living hell, even for a devil who was supposed to be at home in that world._

_It was one day when a child, by chance, summoned her as a familiar. Of course she would accept it, as a life in our world was be much better than the life she had in the land of the devils._

_Kinda ironic that this woman plays prank on everyone every chance she gets, even if they're on her benefactor. And to imagine a world full of Devils...such a frightening thought._

...

There is nothing I can find on the Tengu. Either the mental blocks are too powerful or she simply doesn't know. That said, I withdraw my hand from Koakuma's head. She is still shaking in fear yet trying her hardest not to let it show.

...

She begins to speak.

"I-I know what I said about you...but I'll sleep with you if you'll spare Mistress Knowledge!"

A female offering herself to a male, chance of procreation, no strings attached...One could say that I would be a fool to pass this up.

Wait, stop you idiot! Remember your reason for even coming here! And look at her! She's fighting tears! Are you really going to harm her even further?

Besides, this may be another trick! Koakuma is a Devil, meaning there is the possibility that she can consume your life and magic if you accept!

...

"I have no intention of raping you, miss. I would like a copy of everything in the library, and I would like to sleep if you if you would not try consuming my soul. But since you don't want to do either of those, I will not bother trying to force you. Your master owes me that, so it's up to her to pay it or something of equal or greater value. I'll let you two figure it out. I have what I need...so I'll be leaving."

Although the tears remain, she is no longer sad, assuming her brightening face and her mouth curving upwards is a good indication.

But being so magically and physically drained, I am no longer caring about how she feels. I turn to leave her with her master, and I walk down towards the door that leads further into the mansion.

* * *

**Author's Comments:**

Thanks to Kaiser for proofreading.

Somehow, Sasuke feels too warm and fuzzy in this chapter. Hopefully you all liked this chapter more than the last one.

Also, I made the alignment poll Not-blind (How do you say it?) so that people can see the results.

As always, I would like to hear from you all as to your thoughts of my fic. Criticisms on grammar and spelling, notices, likes, expectations, etc.


	10. Unstrategic Retreat

Although I'm not tired, I am weak, injured and drained. And with these fairies attacking me constantly, I don't think I will be recovering anytime soon.

I suppose I can't ask that a day go smoothly. But I didn't expect that a simple trip to get machine parts for the Tenma would turn into a near death battle against Spider Youkai who had the powers of an Oni. Nor would I suspect that I would be asked to go on a rescue mission to save some kidnapped men and women.

Efficiency wise, I am happy that I won an unarmed physical fight against a Martial Artist Youkai and a magic duel against a prepared magician and her servants.

To be honest, this rescue mission is probably a waste of time. I had sent the injured man home to inform someone of the incident. That said, the rescue mission should be a success even if I quit now. Because if I quit now then someone should be able to pick up where I left off.

I'll return to Youkai mountain and heal myself, give the other tengu strategic information about dealing with the people in the mansion, and retire for the day.

This door looks like it leads outside judging from the windows. The sun shining on my face and the appearance of the brick wall I had destroyed shows that my choice was correct.

Ms. Hong will not stop me from leaving the grounds. After all, it was what she wanted, right?

Now begins the journey home, to the warmth and comfort of friends and family. I don't have many of either, so I should cherish them as much as possible.

I can only pray that my fellow Tengu know to send reinforcements. After all, what can one Hakurou do to an enemy who can easily defeat and kidnap several Karasu?

And in my weakness, I can only pray that I made the right choice.

Because if they are not competent enough to understand that severity, than I very well may be dooming those kidnapped to an horrible fate.

* * *

In the face of an impossible task, sacrifice the foolhardy part of yourself.

By the death of your pride, your own life shall be spared.

Cling to it as no one could ask for more and hope that your faltering does not spell doom to others.

Failure Ending

Re-try?

Yes yes yes/No no no

* * *

**Author's Notes:**

And that is my attempt at making a chapter without anyone proof reading it. Hopefully my writing here isn't atrocious. On top of that, it's not the usual Bad Ending I usually make.

However, like the Bad Ending chapters, I'm going to continue writing the story as if this never happened. That's not to say that this isn't the True Ending, but...

I don't know why, but I'm disappointed in myself for making this chapter. Not because the doggy is giving up, but because it feels like I'm not going about it the right way in having him give up. That and the fact that it's so short (not even 500 words). I'm also feeling that I haven't worn him out enough to justify him quitting.

What do you think, dear readers? I'm interested in knowing your thoughts on my fic so far...specifically this chapter. Yes, even you anonymous readers.


	11. Chapter 8

Although I'm not tired, I am weak, injured and drained.

I suppose I can't ask that a day go smoothly. But I didn't expect that a simple trip to get machine parts for the Tenma would turn into a near death battle against Spider Youkai who had the powers of an Oni. Nor would I suspect that I would be asked to go on a rescue mission to save some kidnapped men and women.

Efficiency wise, I am happy that I won an unarmed physical fight against a Martial Artist Youkai and a magic duel against a prepared magician and her servants.

To be honest, this rescue mission is probably a waste of time. Back before I came to the lake, I sent the injured man who asked me to come here home to inform someone of the incident. That said, the rescue mission should be a success even if I quit now. Even if I quit now, someone should be able to pick up where I left off.

I used all of my medical ointment on the injured man who sent me on this mission.

My wounds have healed, but at the cost of my strength.

I will endure, because if nothing else, I can endure.

...

Before me is a hallway, a long hallway. Five hundred, twenty-seven and one tenth meters if my perception isn't wavering from the injuries.

Food, I can smell food from the far end. It's faint, but it is there...unless I am delusional. If I eat, I can restore my strength and energy levels.

"I still find it odd that my cooking is better than yours."

There was someone in the hallway, walking this way! Several people! Dozens!

This door to my left, is it unlocked? No! I need a place to-

Above! I leap up and kick off the wall, landing in the suspended light fixture hanging above the hallway. Now if they just do not look up...

...

Their appearance was not what one would normally consider to use, which seems to be common with this entire mansion, but judging from their cleaning and aprons, I would say they were working as maids. Rather foreign maids, but maid enough that you can tell they are maids.

Their wings and weak presence indicated that they are fairies. And peculiar fairies on top of that.

While they are all smaller than full-grown females (based on common races that have an aging rate), they are obviously peaking somewhere in their "age" at something above normal (or, if you go by human standards, 13 years) and have proportions to match. None of them appear to have full adulthood, but none of them look like true children.

Fairies feed off of nature merely by existing, because of that and the fact that they do not age, it is often argued that they are not true youkai. Youkai or not, I did not care to waste my time in those debates.

Wait, something's else is in the room? She smells like a human...

Yes, that woman right there among the fairies. She has bright red eyes, silver hair in long braids on both sides of her face with green bows at the ends and a white maid headband. Just like the fairies, she's wearing a pinkish white shirt with a matching apron and a dark blue skirt with a matching vest as well as a green ribbon. Something's embroidered on her left sleeve, but I'm not at a good angle to tell what.

Her height and lack of wings give her away, but even so, she stands out as she is doing a better job at cleaning than any of the fairies. I think she's what humans call a teenager.

...Did she just disappear into thin air?

There was no life force flux, no magical energy reaction, nor was there any divine power present. Perhaps she was part of an elaborate illusion?

"That's because you only think of what tastes good to you!" A second fairy responds to the first.

"Haven't you two already talk about this before?" A third asks.

...What?

Before I can mentally list the problems with that sentence, the fairies started chittering.

"What is it!?" the human woman asks.

"It's here! A youkai is here!" one of the fairy maids responds.

"Is it Ms. Meiling?"

"It's strong! Strong as the mistress!"

I'd like to think that the strongest member of the household was the leader. Many youkai families work that way. We Tengu like to think ourselves above the barbaric law that "the strongest rules," but quite often you will see Hakurou Tengu families where the most powerful member of the family, parent or child, male or female, is the family head.

Like Momiji's family for example; ever since her brother advanced to rank of captain, he replaced their mother as the family's head, who gained the position because she was ridiculously stronger than her own husband. When Momiji defeated me in the tournament shortly after I had utterly devastated her brother in the very same tournament, she became the family head.

Even my family runs the same way.

Aside from that, even the other Tengu, when presented with two individuals, will give more respect to the stronger individual when dealing with people from off the mountain.

However, the problem lies in the fairies and their ability to detect how powerful a nearby youkai is. I have heard humans mention that when they go to exterminate powerful youkai, the fairies always swarm them in number as if to deliberately keep the humans away, resorting to non-lethal methods (although they supposedly weren't above inflicting excruciating pain to the human to ensure their survival).

Similarly, many powerful youkai have told me that there have been times when fairies instinctively swarm and attack them in ridiculous numbers.

Now the question is, am I as powerful as the head of the household when I am in a good condition? Or is the head of the household as powerful as I am when I am in this weakened form. Given that my current energy levels would make me easy pickings for either Ms. Hong or Ms. Knowledge, and that the head is apparently more powerful, then I will have to suspect that the master of the household equates to me in terms of power.

"The mistress's younger sister?"

"It's male!"

...How can they tell that? Oh wait, they're looking at me...They see me! In hindsight, if I didn't hide, they might have merely been suspicious of me when walking by them, thus giving me more time to recover my strength.

"Get him! For the Scarlet Devil Mansion!"

They're raising their brooms and mops and flying at me!

I leap backwards, narrowly avoiding being hit by a broom. I swing my arms vertically to my upper body while pulling my legs in. The force I am applying allows me to back flip in mid air. I uncurl as I fall, and I land on my feet.

"Ow!" A fairy in my blind spot? When did she- "Ow!" Quit hitting me!

I thrust my palm outward.

Fairies, they're fragile, so even in my weakened state, it's not a surprise that this fairy is incapacitated. The explosion of sparkling energy and shattering of her head indicate her "death," not that she'll stay dead given that she's a fairy.

Another fairy is coming at me from behind! I raise my arm and spin, stopping a broom from hitting my body by blocking it. My free arm thrusts forward, knocking the fairy out of the air and onto the ground.

Three fairies from behind, I jump and spin. With one extending leg, I knock three fairies down to the ground.

My leg hurts from the kick; my body is either weak or weakening and the fairies seem to know this.

"Sakuya! Get back! We'll handle him!"

I turn and see at least twelve more fairies flooding the hallway, entering from the far end which is my destination.

"If we rush him all at once, there's no way we can lose!"

Against a normal youkai, that is a sure fire way to win. However, I am a Tengu. Being a Tengu, I am the wind. Using the slight breeze from a nearby open window, I amplify the wind near me and begin to hover into the air.

Some of these fairies are armed with actual weapons. I have to strike before they close the distance.

Wind gathers behind me...and explodes!

I launch myself forward through the air as fast as I can.

I force myself to move as fast as possible even in the small area.

When we Tengu move at this speed, we warp things around us. A loud explosion occurs and the gust is drastically stronger than when we fly even the slightest bit slower than that speed. It is at this speed where we move so fast that noises do not reach the ears of people before we can.

I am moving faster than the speed of sound.

I can tell that I am doing exactly that now as the windows in the hallway shatter as I pass by them and the fairies are blown away while not even being in my direct path.

Just by moving from one end of the hallways to the other, I have already won the figh-

Why are there several knives suspended in the air...and in my path?

Wait, where did they come from!? My momentum is carrying me! I have no time or space to dodge!

My face is struck by the blunt of a handle. My chest, arms and legs are being slashed and impaled by knives. My loss of focus and sudden pain cause me to crash into the floor, sliding across it until I impact the wall.

The hallway I came down looks upside down...oh wait...I'm upside down. My back hurts and at the top of my vision is the human woman.

"S-Sakuya, you got him!" a fairy exclaims. This statement is wrong as I'm still functioning, even if not in good condition.

However, I felt nothing. That is this human has nothing. No magic, no divine power, no life force. Yet, the knives that were moving faster than I can see has been attributed to the human by the fairy. Even by using the scientific theories used in the outside world, according to the books we manage to get our hands on, such a feat should still be impossible!

Just what is she?!

Actually, if she is truly moving faster than me, she'd be creating a blast of wind similar to how I do. Is she teleporting?

I start pulling the knives in my body out. However, as I do so, they seem to vaporize into thin air; probably a defensive means to keep her weapons out of enemy hands.

"All of you resume your duties, I will handle the intruder by myself," she says, the knife in her hand becoming several at the flick of her wrist.

I finish pulling the last knife out. With my other hand, I pull out the long sword that Hieda gave me earlier today, training my eyes on the woman.

She vanishes into thin air.

I can feel a subtle wind behind me-she's there! I raise my sword and spin as fast as possible. My vision catches her and the appearance of more of those knives! But this time, I'm not moving at them too fast to stop myself, and I have a weapon.

The collision of metal rings in the air as I deflect the knives with my sword-

Ow, that got me in the leg! No, she's disappearing again!

I spin and...there she is! And more knives!

She's not disappearing again? She's just looking at me...

"Your reflexes are good, I rarely see a youkai with your degree of speed."

So I'm still faster than normal youkai even when I have less than half my physical energy? I suppose I may have thought it was possible...but I never thought about it.

"However, your speed is worth little to nothing before me."

She's looking down on me. She's probably not giving it her 100%. That said, I should probably just try to endure this as long as I can and take advantage of an opening.

I blink, and she's gone.

I feel a sharp pain pierce me, immediately followed with continuing pain flowing through my chest cavity. The tips of two blades shoot out my chest.

She stabbed me in the back!

I turn and swing my sword, but she vanishes before I can strike her.

I spin, seeing her several meters away. She reveals that she is holding six more knives. She throws them expertly, all of them aimed for me but spread out specifically to do more damage on a damage-per-knife scale should I dodge.

My control over wind may not be on Aya's level, but it should be enough to deal with this.

My free hand lifts up, palm faced forward. The wind busts out, deflecting the knives.

She's gone. Hair's tingling. She's to my left. I spin and swing my sword, deflecting four knives as they were in a diagonally straight line.

She's gone again, click to the right. I spin and swing my sword, I hit deflect one knife as I am hit by two more. This particular set was vertical, making my deflect method less useful.

Change tactics. I need to immobilize her teleporting. A fairy maid that hasn't been killed, or as killed as one can be. I see her struggling to stand. I have an idea. Knives! With the same action, I launch myself at the fairy maid while dodging the knives that are flying at me.

And fly right into several more knives.

I am hit with enough force to halt my advance on the fairy maid, and the impact to my body causes me to fall to the floor.

...

I am on the ground. I am bleeding. This plan is a failure.

"You said he was as powerful as the mistress," I hear the human maid say. I hear her foot steps as she walks towards me.

"That's odd, I thought he was," the fairy trailed off. Wait, the fairy is still standing in front of me. I may have a chance, but my timing absolutely needs to be better than theirs.

"Obviously he's nothing more than trash. Get the others up and toss him out of the mansion," the human responds. Judging from the sound of her steps, she's farther away from from me than the fairy is.

Push ups have never been so necessary, I launch myself upwards and at the fairy. Even in my weakened state, I am still faster and stronger than her. My hand is on her.

"MEEP!" she screams, alerting the human who spins in response, knives drawn and thrusting at me.

Her limb speed indicates that she moves at a non-magically augmented human speed, thus indicating that I am moving faster. If her mind speed matches her limb speed, then I see all movements between us faster than she does.

My hand on the fairy's stomach, I raise and thrust my palm, putting the fairy into the human's blade.

She registers that I just used her fellow maid for a feint. I see her eyes widening in surprise. My other hand, now free from me letting go of the sword, grabs her by the back of her neck. She can't teleport without taking me with her.

My hand on the fairy moves from the smaller maid, letting her drop. I immediately grab the human maid's wrist as quickly as I can, totally immobilizing her forward arm. While her back arm is free, it is isolated from me and so she can't use it against me.

I suddenly feel something impact my pelvic bone, it hurts but...

"UAAAAAAH!" the woman shouts in pain while retracting her foot from between my legs. "W-what the-"

How did she even make that kick?

Forcing her to bend with her elbow and shoulder, I forcefully put her wrist to her back. I think this is what law enforcement officers do when apprehending someone.

"You're a pervert," she gasps out.

...Wait, what? Wait...I know this. The position I am in, standing behind a woman while holding her in submission against her will.

I would appear as a rapist. Of course, given that her form is that of under the legal age of consent without parental consent, I would appear to be a pedophile.

"I do not hit on underage girls, nor am I a rapist," I correct her line of thought. I think "hit on" is the right term. I'll have to ask one of the other Tengu when I'm finished with this mission. That said, perhaps I can interrogate her without any-

"You're hitting on me!" she says. Okay, I've heard that humans aren't as intelligent as Tengu, but somehow this feels pathetic. Unless she's trying to make me make an irrational action? She's still resisting.

"Wrong type; we're fighting," I say as I thrust both my arms forward. The maid impacts the wall, yelping in pain. As her body stumbles away from it, I immediately reach out and grab her. I lift Sakuya by the collar of her top, playing on the psyche and adding to the intimidation factor. This is easy not only because she is simply light, but also because she is, like many people, smaller than me.

"I'm not going to hurt you if tell me everything you know about those who were kidnapped," I tell her truthfully. Well, not if she decides to attack me should I let her go.

Yes. I'm agitated from using roundabout methods. I will get answers from someone, here and now. Let's see how she reacts to intimidation...

"Your fairies will heal from those wounds. But anything I inflict on you possibly won't. And nor am I interested in needlessly harming anyone for information, bad enough I was forced to injure the door guard-"

"You hurt Meiling!?" she shouts. Oh yes, Koakuma mentioned something about the door guard adopting a human child. Is this her by ch-

I feel a sharp cut across my cheek, I feel something stab into my arm! A sharp pain enters my shoulder! My being stabbed by knives! I release my grip due to the pa-

The sharp pains are returning! They're striking me from everywhere! Knives are striking me from all directions, stabbing and cutting into my flesh!

I'm bleeding! It hurts! It hurts! Run! RUN! I can't run! I'm falling!

Knives are still stabbing me!

Holy Lord Tenma, IT HURTS!

...

Do I hear the fairies laughing?

* * *

**Author's Note:**

Special Thanks to Kaiser Dude and Demon Neko Shen for proof reading this.

To be honest, I originally didn't intend for this to escalate so far. I seriously did not think "I'm going to have Sasuke fight the Scarlet Devil Mansion cast," when I started this. I honestly intended that this would be a Slice of Life fic, not an action packed quest.

That said, I'm also torn at whether I should take advantage of this moment and have a flashback. It's not crucial to the plot, but it does make some sense of things...I think. Maybe.

In other news...

It's official, Life of the Tengu is part of the group project "Danmakuverse" a universe based on ZUN's Touhou.

If there is a problem with that, it's what ending here is to be used for the other fics people will be making. Not sure if I should try to pick a canon ending here, let the other people make the decision, or ask that people from our little circle decide which ending they want to do based on which ending I make. Doesn't help that I have yet to finish this whole thing.

Speaking about endings, I am thinking of putting up a new poll, "which bad ending was the best?" I was thinking of calling it.

Speaking about polls, the results are in!

According to everyone, Sasuke's alignment is...

4 Neutral. 2 Lawful. 2 Chaos. 1 Good.

I thought I'd make both the Ethical and the Moral Neutrals into the same choice for simplicity and then cut it when applying the math, but now I see that I may have made a mistake in doing that. Since Chaos and Law neutralize each other, all that is left it Neutrality.

My original idea was "reduce an equal amount from opposing alignments until one is 0, then cut Neutrality in half, one for ethical and one for moral." This would give me a True Neutral character. If I did the same thing but ignored the Neutral section entirely, then I would have a Neutral Good guy.

The only sure thing I can see from your perspectives is that I know that he is morally NOT evil according to you all, and that's reassuring. Morally not Evil and Ethically ambiguous. I shot myself in the foot here.

If you have any comments, expectations, suggestions, complaints, or criticisms, please tell me.


	12. Chapter -4: He who lacks Spirit

"Hey, you think you're so tough cuz you can kick well!?" a boy asked when he and his friends shoved me. One of their own tried to pick on me and I put him down by kicking him in the stomach. Something I was taught to do to deal with their kind. In hindsight, their loyalty was surprising given that bullies surrounded by "friends" usually lose those friendships when they're beaten up. Although he may have not been the leader.

Being young, the concept of dodging wasn't ready in the minds of children. And so, strongest won, the biggest groups won. As one of those who was alone and weak, I was easily crushed. So I tried to change things.

But this time it became worse.

Where did I go wrong? I learned how to kick, didn't I? So why am I still weaker than the others?

Wait, a minute...how am I this weak? Last I checked, I was one of the most capable fighters among the Tengu, unsurpassed by all even the Dai Tengu in combative ability. So why am I weak, slow and on the ground?

...I see, this is from that time...

**...These memories happened over a century ago...**

I was being bullied, I lashed out, thinking I could make them stop. Now I am on the ground...

I remember cursing myself, or as how far a pup with limited vocabulary could curse anyways. And they kicked me while I was down. Alone, hurt, and weak.

They stopped kicking me...is it over?

No, this was when I first met him...

The wings on his back and big nose indicated that he was of the Hanataka Tengu, in spite the fact he was large enough to be thought a child of the Dai Tengu.

"You want some of this!?" he shouted at the bullies as he rushed them. Although his voice was high pitch and squeaky to an adult, his voice was deep and intimidating to those his age, all on top of his aura of strangeness. Combined with his body mass being big enough for someone to think he was a century older than he was, he didn't have many friends.

That was until he saw me getting bullied and decided to help me. All it took was a shove at the leader of the bullies and the rest backed down.

...Yeah, right. They all ganged up on him and proved that his stronger self was no match for their numbers. But this helped me get off my feet; I tried to help him since he helped me.

We lost, but this defeat was not as bitter as before.

He made a friend, me being bullied happened less often from then on.

Wait...when did this happen in regards to me learning self defense? Well it doesn't matter.

...

Where am I now? This place is...the place where I began formal training as a Tengu Guard.

Although I am surrounded by my peers, my own friends are either not my age or not my sub-race. Thus, in this year of training, I will be alone. I was in a line of girls and boys my age. We were all the same type of Tengu, whitish hair, matching wolf features. We were lined up and he was pacing from one end to the other in front of us. This man who would be training us.

He lifted a tightened fist into the air, speaking out authoritatively.

"If fighting is sure to result in victory, then you must fight!" He paused for a moment and looked at us.

"Hoshiguma said that, and I think she knows a little more about fighting than you do, mutts," he said when poked my head hard, "Because she invented it!"

He turned away and continued pacing.

"And then she perfected it until no living creature could best her in the ring of honor!" He likely stole that line from someone else, someone as idiotic as him. He turned and looked at us again.

"And that's exactly what we're going to make you! Keen, mean, killing machines!"

Who were we fighting? By the time training would be over, the war would be over, I should suspect. We would be no longer used as a militia and would be used as actual guards.

"You are all weak! You are all pathetic! But when I am through with you, you'll be unkillable by any living creature in Gensokyo save the Oni themselves!"

In spite the fact that my own personal training had ensured that I was the physically most capable Hakurou present aside from Surudoi Me, I could not help being afraid.

...

Wait, darkness again? This...this place, I am outside...Oh yes, this was the night I killed that man, that Oni who disgusted me. He was returning to the mountain with a human he kidnapped.

"Hehehe, any creature that has to rely on dishonest tricks isn't fit to live in freedom." Was that what he said? I don't remember.

Why did I run at him? He disgusted me, yes, but was that enough reason for me to attack him? After I collided with him from the tackle, we're both on the ground. He recovered first and struck me with his foot. I heard the sickening breaking of bones.

I couldn't breathe due to the injury. He lifted me by the throat.

"A Tengu attacking an Oni? This can be punished by death!"

"Fight," I gasped out. The Oni looked at me like I was odd. "FIGHT!"

I think I was coughing up blood.

The human attacked the Oni in the back with... I don't remember. The human woman attacked him with something. Was it a knife? If so, where did it come from? Or perhaps it was a spell? This memory is too muddled for my to remember that detail.

The Oni dropped me in pain, then immediately spun... back-handed the human, causing her to fly.

"Bitch, I'll make you pay for that!" he yelled, walking to her. I had a clear shot at him and his back was turned to me. I made the hand motions as quickly as I could while being injured.

I recall it hurting a lot.

"Dark...as...night...fast...as...light..." I started.

Normally, Lighting magic infused with Darkness merely makes Lightning that was harder to invoke weakness of, and created more painful strikes to be bared against an enemy. But when invoked in the most basic form of the mix, it had two added effects; increased damage and disintegration-on-death to any of the Oni species it struck.

"Strike...my...enemy...with...all...my...might."

He turned to look at me, wondering what I was saying...probably.

"Black Lighting."

Black was the color, crooked was the shape. It came out of my body and launched itself at him, arcane energy that had taken the form of Electricity and Darkness. The horned bipedal monster screamed in pain upon impact, but the scream was short as the energy vanished.

The Oni's body fell to the ground, and began to crumble into dust from the impact.

Then darkness took me, my eyes closed for an undetermined amount of time.

...

"Are you okay?!" I opened my eyes to see a human woman over me.

Oh yes, she was grateful that I saved her...I don't recall feeling happy about saving her. I wasn't even happy about my research into an Anti-Oni spell being a success.

* * *

**Author's Note:**

Thanks to Kaiser Dude for proof reading. This chapter is abnormally short, and unlike the last one that was this short, it doesn't end here. Well, with Sasuke having flashbacks, hopefully I can reintroduce the "Slice of life" genre into this fic. If not, then I apologize.

As for Sasuke's alignment, the people who voiced their opinion (you have my thanks, all [three?] of you) gave me enough stuff to work with. Ethically Neutral by way of ethical ambiguity. More morally good than morally neutral. This gives me a Neutral Good character. That said, if anyone ever decides that we apply our Touhou OCs into a table top format that requires an alignment, I have something to go off of. As silly and meaningless as it was, thank you for your time and effort.

I hope Sasuke's backstory isn't angsty or traumatic, please tell me if it is.


	13. Chapter -3: He who lacks Charisma

Surudoi Me.

I wasn't always the overall best. There was someone who had everything I had... all of it and more.

Yes, I was among the best in terms of constitution, dexterity, reflexes, speed, and magical ability; but he was all of that and among the strongest of our kind, and the second most powerful telegnosis user after Momiji.

It wouldn't have been so bad had he gotten his powers the same way I did. While I studied and trained myself; he was always getting into trouble, rebelling against those higher in authority, stealing other boys' girls, drugging himself, goofing off...

With a life like his, power gained without effort, I couldn't help but feel jealous of him. Even in the cruel circumstances of his death...deep down, I know that some part of me was happy I when killed him.

**Over five decades ago...**

Where was this? I turned my head to see that I was walking side by side with Surudoi Me. I looked behind myself and saw a Tengu archer with a crazed look in his eyes, and a human woman dressed in black, red and white.

Oh yes, there was an evil spirit that somehow escaped from the Hell that had animals born to feed on it and its kin. It found its way into the land of the living and started possessing humans. One of the Hakurei Shrine Maiden had been hunting it for the last several days and eventually tracked it to an area near Youkai Mountain.

The Tenma deemed it necessary to send a small group of guardsmen with the Shrine Maiden, to escort her through the Tengu-owned areas, to ensure her survival against stronger enemies, and to make sure that she left once the job was completed.

This section of Gensokyo... this snowy land... I had never been here before until then. Although we Tengu had claimed it as our own, it remained largely unexplored. To let one know just how much unexplored territory the Tengu "owned" there was, our hunting party came across a creature whom no one in our party had ever seen before, or even heard or read about.

Under normal circumstances, this would make sense. However, these circumstances were not normal. The reptilian monster was such a size that a single tooth was the size of a man. It's long mouth was filled with such teeth, 25 razor-sharp teeth to a quarter, 100 in total if I didn't miss any. Its head was slightly but disproportionately small for a reptile. But then again, reptiles never live in the ice like this monstrosity did. It's back was aligned with crystal-like blades, its arm and leg muscles bulging as if it spent its life perfecting its appearance.

At the time, I was ready to release the fecal matter from my bowels from its presence. But we weren't there to kill the native to the frigid world of cold death. I had been tasked to maintain a particularly draining spell to keep our group out of its line of sight so that we could avoid wasting out time and energy on fighting something we knew nothing about. As for our group...

At the time, I questioned our lord's line of thinking; Surudoi had an abnormality about himself that caused some women to fall in love and/or sleep with him... unless I was delusional at the time. That said, if something happened between him and the Miko, there could be unrest among the Hakurei family. After all, their abnormal powers stemmed from being part of a pure human bloodline. The archer was clinically insane. The only reason I could see him being useful is by acting as bait for the Evil Spirit. I was also surprised he hadn't done anything needlessly extreme or harmful to any of us.

_"Why is he walking behind us?"_ I asked myself at the time. Of course, the thought wasn't given a chance to be finished when we thought we may have reached our target.

"Wait, that's the body that the spirit last possessed?" someone asked. I don't remember who. The body was that of a human's and looked like it may have been dead given that it was lying face down in the snow.

"Yeah, it is... Ito, go check it out!"

I grumbled when I approached it. However, the distance that had been closed fell short of even half the original length. I had stopped in my tracks when I was suspicious. I had cast a spell for seeing magic and saw that the body had been rigged to explode, at least judging by the magic circle there.

"What's wrong, Ito?" Surudoi asked.

"The body's rigged to explode," I answered back.

"That's no excuse, just deal with it," he responded. It was then when my pent-up hate for him peaked. Whether or not he assumed that everyone could do as well as he could, he acted as though anyone who couldn't was pathetic. In hindsight, he also always accused someone who was as good or better than him as pathetic for cheating or being too ambitious for trying to be so effective in that area. Talk about double standard.

It felt wrong, wrong to be seen as being a lesser creature just because I wasn't born lucky. Hell, my "unique" ability, the power to see someone's middle initial, wasn't something I was born with but something that I made via magic.

"Shut up, Surudoi! Not everyone is born with everything like yo-" I didn't finish the sentence. I was hit by something hot along with a powerful force. My ears ringed from the sudden and loud noise.

When I came to my senses, I could make sense of what had happened. Explosives went off where I stopped, not when I was near the body. Whoever set it up intended that the person it was meant for would be extra cautious. And I fit the requirement.

Not only could I feel that I suffered burns but also I couldn't feel my legs, or my right arm as they had been severely damaged if not blown clean off. I blanked out for a few moments...

I opened my eyes and saw that my body was almost fully healed, but it was still the same time of day judging from the light. I could see them off in the distance, Surudoi grappling the Evil Spirit. Then something happened, the Evil Spirit pushed itself into Surudoi and vanished. Surudoi stopped and began moving like he was trying to pull something off, but... he wasn't actually grabbing anything. I didn't know then, but he was being possessed. Finally being fully healed, I began to stand up.

"This body is... AWESOME! I never possessed a youkai before! I... I..." It didn't sound like the possessed human did, like that of the original users with a hint of something wrong. I couldn't hear an audible difference in the voices. "This man, he's stronger, faster...BETTER than anyone I had possessed before!"

"Not so fast!" The Miko shouted, she lifted up a talisman. The energy that shot from it felt overwhelming, and it struck the possessed Tengu. The snow and smoke cleared, revealing that Surudoi was... unaffected?

"... No sell, bitch!" the possessed Tengu shouted proudly.

"What!? That was specially designed to one hit knock out an Evil Spirit from someone's body!" the Miko exclaimed.

"Are you sure?" I asked when I pulled myself to her side.

"That's what I used the last three times he possessed someone!" she confirmed.

"Did you make a mistake?"

"No! Something has to be different..."

Something occurred to me, so I asked another question.

"Have you ever cast a Spirit out of a possessed youkai before?" The miko paused at my question. Her mind processed my question, or her experiences relevant to it.

"No... actually, I have never heard of an Evil Spirit possessing a youkai before now." My hypothesis was that the control that an Evil Spirit has over a youkai is much stronger than what it has over a human. But I would be proven wrong when the Archer spoke.

"I don't feel it," he said. I kept my eyes on the Tengu in front of us to ensure that it would not make any sudden moves while listening to the explanation.

"Feel what?" the Miko asked.

"I don't feel his presence," the Archer elaborated, "I only sense one being in his body. I don't sense two like I did when the Vengeful Spirit possessed humans..."

The Archer was insane, but his next words, even from a man such as he, were disturbing.

"Surudoi Me is gone; where did his soul go?"

When he said that, I realized that the moment the Evil spirit took over Surudoi's body, it was over. Death, nothingness, it didn't matter. What was standing before us was a whole being. The Evil Spirit became the Tengu, and the Tengu's mind was crushed, released or something similar. For all intents and purposes, Surudoi's sense of self no longer existed.

Surudoi Me was the most powerful non-Dai Tengu to ever exist of our age group... and so effortlessly was he slain.

"Now, since I have such a powerful body, I'm going to do the one thing I should have done long ago! I will destroy Gensokyo!" this new Surudoi shouted.

"Hakurou Tengu, we have to stop it here and now!" the Miko of the Hakurei said, she drew several more talismans.

The archer had already knocked an arrow on his bow and drawn it taught, aiming it at Surudoi. That arrow... it had a strange form; namely the arrowhead that had a magic gem encased in it. A gem containing high power... Light-infused Fire-

_"Oh no!"_ was my thought at the time.

"Burn in the depths of Hell, sinner!" the Archer Tengu shouted. In hindsight, since the Evil Spirit was originally a human sent to Hell by the Yama, it was a fitting phrase.

At the time, I was scared to death by the turn of events. The arrow was released, there was no warning! If the arrow landed at this close of distance...

I grabbed the Miko and launched myself into the air, and I flew as fast as I could away from the target zone. The arrow impacted the target, and it happened; magical energy was released from the impact. My flying was not fast enough, and I felt my back overheating as I flew. The heat in the explosion was supposedly to be as hot as the Sun itself.

To explain things, the gem was created using the best magical minds in Tengu society. It required an insane amount of work to create the one gemstone. And our archer used it like it was of no consequence. He had just wasted years of collective effort and money. This isn't even taking into account that some of the components cannot be recreated by the methods of the Tengu. In fact, how did he even get his hands on the gem to begin with?

That didn't matter to me at the time, but the explosion could have easily killed an Oni.

Of course, the wasted weapon only made things more difficult. The flames cleared as the extensive cold ate away at it... and there stood Surudoi. He had been blown back quite a bit, but any injury he received was already being mended. He was laughing hysterically.

"Ha... HAHAHAHAHA! This youkai, he was under the effect of a spell, one that renders him immune to Light and Fire Magic! Who knew!?"

"Damn it, I came here fully prepared to send a Spirit to the afterlife, not to deal with a high-powered youkai!"

"Prep something up, I'll hold him off at close quarters!" I shouted as I flew at the possessed youkai. I swung my sword. The enemy raised Surudoi's sword and blocked my attack.

The swords collided, steel against steel, creating a small shockwave. My arms immediately hurt from the force they had to go against. The next part is hazy given that we only hacked at each other, but my arm strength eventually gave way; one upward strike and I was disarmed.

I was shaken, he was relentless. Before I could react, the sword was plunged through my chest. My attempt to grapple him was useless as he threw a kick into my chest, just below where his sword was piercing me. The bones in my chest were crushed. When I hit the ground, I didn't stop there; I scraped against the ice and rolled. When I tried to get to my feet, I heard the scream!

"Eeek!" The voice was from the Hakurei. I could see her falling to the ground as Surudoi pulled his sword out of her side. In one motion, he blocked another arrow from the Archer.

The Archer was only firing 4 arrows a second, more than enough time for Surudoi to not only react to each arrow and block it, but simultaneously close the distance between himself and the Archer faster than the latter could back away.

"UAAAAH!" screamed my fellow Tengu as he was struck by the Evil Spirit. I hoped that it was my chance and ran for the Miko, taking advantage of the distraction my crazed comrade provided. If I could grab her and flee from the area, I could not only live but avert potential danger to Gensokyo.

Or so I had wished. Three words dashed my hopes;

"Linear Destroying Spark!"

The white energy beam tore through my body, my body was not only being burned but also stuck so hard that I could not even scream. When it was over, I fell to the ground, unable to feel over half my body.

I was breathing heavily.

"How does it feel to know that the Hakurei is going to die due to your incompetence?" I heard Surudoi ask. "When this Hakurei dies, perhaps all of Gensokyo will crumble. Perhaps they'll have the border rely on one of her family members. Maybe I should kill them one by one until nothing remains."

He was panting heavily while saying this. So he doesn't have more endurance and stamina than me.

"But fear not, you won't live long enough to regret it," he said as he lifted up his sword. He paused, clearly being able to feel it. I knew he felt it because I felt it.

It was something radiating dark power; power greater than what myself, the Miko and the Archer had. It was unlikely, but there was the possibility that it may have been even more powerful than all three of us combined.

Surudoi turned, swinging his sword diagonally down at the newcomer, but his sword was blocked by another sword.

That menacing sword, I've seen it before.

"The human who offered his life to me to ensure that his family would not become my snacks, his flesh began to rot before I had the chance to eat him. And as filling as it is, I loathe the taste of rotten flesh."

The menacing sword was being held by a familiar blond woman in a black dress. My initial thought was _"What's Rumia doing here?!" _She answered that almost immediately with her next comment.

"While our deal required that he be alive so that he'd be fresh when I consumed him, I will overlook it since clearly he did not anticipate you, Evil Spirit."

"I have a name, you whore of a youkai!" the enemy Tengu spoke. He was distracted, I cast an offensive spell.

"Black Lighting Chain!" I threw my hand out, and the arcane energies formulated to appear as black lighting and struck Surudoi's body, making him scream in pain. The excess energy leaped into Rumia's body.

I don't remember if it harmed her, fueled her or both. I don't even remember what I was thinking at the time, but Rumia was in much better condition than the Evil Spirit's body. She began to push forward, push him back.

Either my other arm had regrown, or I regained feeling in it. Whichever the case, I turned my body over and began crawling away.

_"I'm outclassed here!"_ I thought, _"They're both stronger than me."_

Indeed. Even if Rumia's initial quarrel was with the Evil Spirit who possessed Surudoi, there was the very possible chance that should she win, she would kill the three of us.

I wanted to escape.

The ground shook with an explosion, which was followed by the sounds of spells being cast, steel hitting steel and more explosions. The force of an impact behind me knocked me off the ground. I fell to the ground, crashing, face first. I was about to blank out when I heard someone call my name.

"Ito!" I pulled my head out of the snow and looked up at the human woman who we were supposed to be protecting.

"The dagger I dropped was blessed by Onozuka... if that blade is driven into the Surudoi's head, it's soul will be sent to the afterlife without fail. Even if the Evil Spirit now exists as the youkai, it will work because of the blessing was constructed to work on all souls."

_"Komachi Onozuka, one of the shinigami?"_ I asked myself. This only heightened my state of fear, perhaps it was because of the thought of a spirit of death's power being present. Then something more horrifying happened.

_"Wait, why is she even telling me this?"_

As if she were a Satori, she answered the question I never spoke.

"I'm done. If I don't invoke divine power to heal myself, I will cross the Sanzu within the hour. You're the only one I can count on."

_"Wait, what!? Is she seriously wanting me to take on the two monsters that are clashing before us? Even one of them could easily wipe the floor with me! Yes, I am a Tengu, but I am clearly out of my league! You're asking a bit of straw to challenge a whirlwind!"_

Her eyes relaxed, becoming half closed. Before I could argue with her, she was already concentrating on healing herself. I dared not interrupt her and instead turned my head to the sounds of battle.

The steel clashed as double edged sword and scimitar crossed.

"What's wrong, Shadow Youkai? Feeling under the weather?" Surudoi asked. He was arrogant, just like he was before having his soul and mind replaced with the Evil Spirit's.

"Shut up and die!" Rumia growled. Putting distance between herself and the Tengu, she lifted her free hand and let loose a white beam of energy, smaller than the one that Surudoi nearly killed me with.

"Invocation - Four Elemental Orbs Explosion!" Surudoi said as he dodged the beam.

I can understand using vocal commands that describe the action, but I honestly find making spells with long verbal requirements an illogical action.

The spell cast was just as the name described; four orbs, each one with a different element, fired out in a spinning motion as if they were circling the same point. The orbs reached where Rumia would have been standing had she not flown out of the way and exploded.

Rumia did not notice another spell that was being invoked at the same time. The follow up spell Surudoi used had no verbal components, neither incantation nor declaring.

Surudoi became enriched with magical energy and moved at a speed which, while I was able to see it perfectly, was too fast for Rumia to dodge.

When he rammed into her, Rumia's body began to burn in a way that mere fire would be incapable of doing. Perhaps it was pure magical energy? The force of the impact itself implicated that the force driving into the Shadow youkai was as powerful as an Oni's punch.

I was beginning to see some differences between the man of the Me family, and the man whose soul and mind were that of the Evil Spirit's. The former would not have wasted his time on a speed technique when his sheer speed alone was enough to perform the same action. In addition, the latter was not using Surudoi's spells nor his wind powers and using spells that Tengu normally don't use.

This would lead me to believe that the Evil Spirit had no or little access to Surudoi's memories.

Rumia had no active defenses against the attack. When she was impacted, she screamed in pain and crashed into the ground.

"Amazing, that attack would have killed a Tengu instantly. I guess I can't mess around now that I'm low on magic," Surudoi said. Really? How would he know?

"Damn you," Rumia said as she tried to get to her feet.

"While I'd like to continue to play with you; I have several humans, gods and youkai who are in dire need of a healthy dose of pain, misery, and death."

Rumia roared in anger, darkness flooding from her body. What she was going to use this darkness for, I would never find out.

"Sign - Crippling immunity to one's own power," Surudoi spoke. A bolt of energy launched itself from his's finger and struck Rumia in the head. Her roar of anger immediately became a roar of agony.

I, myself, have been notorious for being bland in naming spells, but looking back on it, even I could tell this man was terrible.

But back then, I was shocked. I knew that Surudoi was powerful, but this was ridiculous. It felt like fate decided to give an unworthy low-life power without trial, and all for him to abuse. And then when it seemed that he finally got what he deserved and those who worked harder and smarter than everyone else would finally get their rightful places, fate takes the power lost to the undeserving scumbag and hands it to a truly competent monster.

Even if she wasn't invincible, the Shrine Maiden would have been at least competent in this fight had she been prepared for a youkai and not a spirit. She knew the risks when she foregone that.

The archer was injured, and given that his ability to heal himself was not working properly, he too lied useless on the ground.

Outclassed, they did not try to run. They tried to hold their ground and go through with the mission. And there I was, more powerful than both of them, yet my first instinct was to flee.

Even when I understood that I was pathetic, this knowledge was not enough. What could I do? I wanted to run away and abandon everything.

This cowardice of mine, this is why I was confused as to why I could attack an Oni when I was younger.

I always wanted to ask myself _"Who was the brave Tengu who wore my face when I fought that elder demon? When I fought a man of the Ibuki Household?"_

I was gripped by fear. Gripped by this fear that could kill me.

Although I did not know it at the time, it was then when the Hakurei, the savior of the humans, became the savior of me. Even in her injured form, she still knew that if I could get past my fear, then I was the best bet we had against the possessed Surudoi. The blessing she bestowed on me suppressed my fear. I didn't know it at the time, but it was then when my mind changed, even if only temporarily.

I thought to myself...

_"The evil spirit is not fully accustomed to that body. Also, the individual is that of a human, making them not as intelligent as Surudoi was. Obviously, they do not know his magical abilities or how to control his wind powers. He also doesn't have Surudoi's fighting skills. In the end, that's all it is, a man who has equal or better physical capabilities and nothing else."_

When rationalizing the situation, I had a grasp as to how I can defeat him.

_"On top of it all, he has been weakened by the Miko, the Archer AND Rumia. Why am I afraid of someone who should be at "the end of the line?" To be afraid of such an opponent to such a degree..."_

It was illogical.

_"How stupid."_

"Hah! HAHAHAHAHAHA! Even the nefarious Shadow youkai is nothing to me!" the Evil Spirit shouted.

"You didn't know? We Tengu see the Shadow Youkai as weak," I said as it if were common knowledge. "Everyone knows that Rumia was probably among the weakest youkai."

"W-what?!"

"What? When you first met the Shadow Youkai as a human, did you think you were fighting some god-like being? She's nothing compared to the average Tengu."

"But I destroyed you! All three of you!"

"Because the idiot with the arrows and I are the weakest, slowest, dumbest and least lucky Tengu alive. And if I can defeat you here, that will just show how pathetic you are."

The reality was that I was the in the middle of the five combatants; I was more powerful than the Archer and the Miko, and less powerful than the late Surudoi and the incapacitated Rumia.

"Not to mention that Tengu are among the weakest of all youkai."

"Lies! All you speak are lies!" I theorized that if he knew for a fact that I was lying then he wouldn't be so angry... Unless he took it as an insult to his intelligence and possibly was insecure about it.

"I can't believe humans can be as stupid as you." His next action proved me correct. He roared like a mad man and flew at me in a rage. His emotions took control of him, leaving himself completely open.

All I had to do was swing my scimitar at the right time and step. The rest was history.

I walked over to the body, missing an arm and lower half, screaming in pain. The pain would continue until his arms regenerated, but I would not give him the chance to heal.

Without stopping, I picked up the Miko's ceremonial dagger which she dropped with my free hand while dropping my sword. I reached down and grabbed Surudoi by the neck, lifted him up and stabbed down into the center of his face with the blessed blade. I paid no mind to the sudden change in screaming as I twisted and wiggled the dagger before ripping it out. I then tossed Surudoi's dead body to the side.

The screams of the enemy Tengu were no more. But there was still screaming. Or rather, crying.

"Rumia!" I shouted when I realized what still needed to be addressed.

We won, but there was no time. Rumia's own power was building up, eating at her. I quickly ran to her side and... was contaminated by her power. I shouldn't have approached it so carelessly, but without life in the frigid wasteland, there was nothing to go off of.

I backed off when my hand felt numb and became grotesque in appearance.

"Please... Help me!" Rumia sobbed, clutching her head.

"Ms. Miko!" I shouted. No response. She must have blacked out, or worse. This meant that the only person who could save Rumia was me.

_"Perhaps because Rumia's power is the power of darkness, there was the possibility that the best choice as to who would help her is me since my studies in sorcery specialized in that element."_

Or so I could calculate at the time. I reasoned that I would have to have a specialist in Sealing take a look at it sometime.

I took one of the Miko's ribbons and placed in front of me. I began making somatic movements for making a seal. Next was the release code.

I needed something simple in case Rumia miraculously recovered. A simple password...

"1-7-3-4-6-7-2-1-4-7-6-Tenma-3-2-7- 8-9-7-7-6-3-Hakurei-7-3-2-Bamboo Shoots-7-3-1 - 1-7-1-8-8-8-7-3-2-4-7-6-7-8-9- 7-6-4-3-7-6-Seal." In hindsight, that was terrible, but I wrote it down so there should not be any problems.

I do not recall the magical words I spoke, but when I finished the spell, the ribbon transformed and flew at Rumia's head. Using my hands like a puppeteer, I manipulated the ribbon remotely. I don't remember the exact hand motions I used, but they made the ribbon tie to her hair, making a sort of bow.

The dark energies that fueled Rumia, the power that she lost control over, the power that was trying to kill her, was sealed away.

Rumia changed; in the matter of seconds, she seemed to become decades younger (or simply years if she aged like humans did).

It was over, and I surrendered to fatigue. When I woke up, my sealing would be critiqued.

...

...

My mind is coming to a new memory. Sometime shortly after...

This location... this is the Tournament. It was when someone decided that since our "Alpha Hakurou Tengu" was killed, we needed to decide on who was the new most powerful individual of our subspecies.

Personally, the purpose for such Tournaments is pointless. And I'm not saying that merely because I've won the majority of them. The reason I joined was because my family wanted a participant of their own in the tournament. And when they learned of my victory over the previous "Alpha," they selected me while saying that I might as well try since I wasn't good enough of a string worker to inherit the family business.

Yes, my family is made of proud and exceptionally skilled thread makers. As a result, my sewing skills are above average.

The first Tournament was a swordsman Tournament.

Here in this arena, there would only be two people fighting at a time. We were restricted to using standard issue scimitar and shields given to us by the mountain's defense force. If we wanted to be clever and had the skill to see it through, we could use any number of either.

I decided to play it safe and took one of each.

"Sasuke Ito, Captain Inubashiri!" I heard my name called out, knowing that I would be up in the first fight.

My first opponent was a Captain of the Defense force, and the head of his respective family. I remember that Momiji talked about it once before.

"Alright you mutts! I don't wanna see any Wind, Magic, or weapons other than your swords, shields and body!" a Hanataka Tengu, dressed in black and white stripped clothes, said. "You know the rules; the first one who is unable to battle is the loser!"

We both nodded as we stared each other down. The captain opened his mouth as the Hanataka Tengu stepped back.

"Do you honestly think you have what it takes to defeat me? You're not even man enough to get a woman in bed!" he taunted. Was that an important factor? If that was the case, why wasn't he selected for the escort mission when Surudoi and I were? But I was too scared to voice it.

Alternatively, this taunt was a good sign that my family had kept their promise when I told them not to let anyone know that the possessed Surudoi died by my hand.

_"But enough of that; if I recall correctly, the captain leads from his right foot."_

Already, the crowd was cheering him on.

"Go Captain!"

"Win, big brother!"

"1000 on Inubashiri!"

"Do us proud, son!"

If anyone had been cheering me on, it was obvious that they were quiet compared to those cheering him on.

"Fight!" the Hanataka Tengu shouted as he leaped back even further, giving us the needed room to fight.

The captain attacked me with a center stab. I stepped to the side, letting him pass me by. As he did, I slashed down with my sword. It was too soon, he was slower than I anticipated. So instead of decapitating him like I intended, I merely sliced off his sword arm.

"Uaaaaaaaaagh!" He yelled when he registered his missing limb. But a missing limb does not stop a youkai. That said, I needed to follow up immediately if I wanted to end the fight.

The shock was easy to take advantage of given that my sword was extended in front of his stomach.  
I turned my wrist and swung, aiming for the stomach. With my sword already between my opponent's shield and his stomach, I cut him in two. The battle was over, I won.

"Winner, Sasuke Ito!" the Hanataka Tengu shouted, grabbing my arm and raising it high.

The crowd? It was silent. All of the my opponent's friends, family members, lovers (if he had any) were all silent. Their hero, the crowd favorite, was soundly defeated, completely crushed. If they truly loved him, they would accept his failure. But while we may wield superior minds to the vast population of Gensokyo, we were not morally better than anyone else.

But it didn't matter what they thought. I was elated.

_"I'm unstoppable! To think I'm not even a Lieutenant and I easily defeated a Captain! Was this the excitement Surudoi felt from dominating everyone at everything?"_

For the first time for...quite a while, I felt true confidence.

Confidence that carried me through the next several matches in a row and without breaks.

But things became difficult during my second to last match.

"Shinjiro Tiangou, Sasuke Ito!"

The man who was my next opponent was among the best of his time, a veteran who was said to have been one of the few to fight in a serious battle against an Oni General and survive.

"In the name of the Divine Sarutahiko Ōkami, may we have a splendid and productive fight! May the best man win and do good for all Tengu!" he said before giving a polite bow.

Sarutahiko Ōkami is the name of the Tengu god whom the majority of Tengu worship, although some Tengu and even non-Tengu worshiped him as an Earth deity. I remember him coming to my home to buy thread one time.

"Boo! You're such a hack!" said someone who was neither cheering for me nor cheering for my opponent.

"Fake politeness!"

If the politeness was fake, why waste energy on it?

"Likewise," I said as I drew my scimitar.

He drew 3, placed the handle of one in his mouth and held the others in each hand.

"Fight!"

In spite of this man being old (compared to the others in this tournament that is), he moved as fast as a Karasu.

Faster than Surudoi.

Steel met steel as his sword collided with mine.

Almost immediately, he had me on the defensive as his movements were faster than my own. All I could do was back up while trying to keep my one sword at parrying and blocking his three. His blows, however, felt light. This indicated that he was significantly weaker than me. That said, I could shrug off his attacks so long as I could block them or dodge them enough so that he couldn't get a solid hit on me.

He continued to strike at me, getting near miss after near miss. My shield proved useless when I tried to use it and resulted in my guarding arm receive a deep cut.

My guarding arm fell to the side in a blood soaked mess as I was unable to lift it. But the veteran did not stop, and continued to try to slice me apart.

As I continued to dodge, roll and leap back, I noticed that the veteran was beginning to slow down slightly. Of course, expending the energy to notice this took its price, a cut to my wrist. My scimitar dropped as I could no longer hold onto it. Now I was unarmed.

I immediately forced myself to ignore the pain and resumed dodging. While I put several meters are between us, he promptly stopped to catch his breath. I became excited knowing that, even injured, I could keep fighting longer than him. But he wasn't done. He swung again.

After what I felt like being a minute of dodging, he started to crack under the pressure.

"Why won't you fall?" he gasped out.

_"Because I am, according to my colleagues, a stamina freak,"_ I thought to myself.

Then suddenly, I'm cornered.

_"No, I can't let him-wait, he's preparing for three horizontal slices!"_

"I have you now!" he yelled through his clenched teeth. He slashed, I leaped and narrowly avoided my feet from being cut off. I slammed my foot down onto his head and thrusted myself forward. With my other foot extended out, I landed smoothly broke into a run towards my sword which was, thankfully, embedded into the ground.

My teeth clenched on to the handle and tore it from the ground. I spun and began to run at Shinjiro. I could see him lifting his swords, he was timing a strike at my body to make sure that I wouldn't reach him.

Before he swung downwards, I readjusted to handle in my mouth as to point forward. My arms had been fully healed and shot upward, slamming the swords in his hands by the handles, knocking them out of his hands. The sword whose handle was in my throat, impaled him through the chest.

He then had let go of the sword in his mouth and I lifted my head up with him still impaled on it.

I threw my head upwards and fell onto my back.

"UUUGH!" His head had been slammed into the ground.

...

My mouth released my scimitar, and I moved away from his upside down body. He was not moving as he had been knocked out.

"Winner, Sasuke Ito!" the Hanataka Tengu shouted, grabbing my arm and raising it high. I defeated a veteran fighter who had yet to be broken by age.

_"I truly am unbeatable!"_ I believed. Then came my next fight.

"Momiji Inubashiri, Sasuke Ito!"

_"Momiji, eh?"_ I remembered her as she and I were in the same age group.

Looking at her standing before me, I could tell she was afraid of me. And I knew that she had good reason to be; her combat scores placed roughly average while I have defeated people who outranked me and were more experienced than me.

Of course, these facts gave birth to the arrogance that I had.

"Be sure to do a better job than your brother did," I said. I probably had a smirk on my face when I said that.

"Fight!"

"RAAAAAAGH!" I swung my sword downward on her. She was already being pushed to her limits as she almost didn't make the block with her shield.

The ground under her seemed to crack slightly from my attack. She scrambled to put distance between us when I lifted my sword.

_"Huh, she's on the defensive. Maybe she knows she can't get a hit in?" _Every time I knocked her sword out of the way, she brought up her shield.

She kept this up for at least a minute.

_"This is taking longer than I thought. Now that I think about it, I'm tired from all the fights I had before." _I thought as I swung at her continuously.

Then my resolve quickly re-tightened.

_"No, I still have enough energy to beat her. I've beaten countless enemies better at fighting than her."_

After a few minutes of Momiji struggling to keep up the fight, it became obvious that she was tiring faster than me. I eventually saw a hole in her defense.

I had thrust my sword, and it was a successful stab.

_"I win."_

...

I could not feel my legs.

"What... happened?" I asked as my upper body fell. My sword was imbedded into her body, but she cut me into two, the same way I defeated her brother. We both collapsed, but she fell 0.21 seconds later than me.

"Ladies and Gentlemen! We have a draw!"

She lasted twenty one wholes hundredths of a second longer than me all while being physically weaker, slower, and having less stamina than me. Officially, the fight was a draw. But from my perspective...she won.

I was taught me something important; never underestimate your enemy, ever.

...

...

Self reflection. This was something I truly needed to consider.

My muscle mass was that if I expanded it further, it would make me slower in movement and reaction time. Also increasing my muscle mass beyond this point would give me more weight, making my body more wasteful in energy usage. With the body I had, I could perfect my balance, speed and stamina.

_"Am I coming to the end of my personal evolution? No, that can't be the case!"_

... No, that's exactly what was happening. In terms of physical ability, I was coming to the peak physical condition of what a Tengu could become through training.

Anything else would have to have been learned as actual skills or applied knowledge.

My physical training had allowed me to live such dreams. But my loss to Momiji was evidence enough that I could not continue and expect to eventually become invincible.

I was staring at the end of the road. And I did not like what I saw. This was my revelation.

Although I won the tournament, I still failed since not all of my fights resulted in wins. I decided to sulk and try to get over it.

There was an island in the middle of a lake which I flew to. Now that I'm seeing my memories, I'm certain sure that it was the Misty Lake before the giant foreign building appeared there.

It was then when I met a large green haired plant fairy.

She introduced herself as "Yuuka Kazami," and seemed to already know my name due to news of my defeat, which was technically a draw, at the hands of Momiji being spread beyond the Tengu village.

What was the lone fairy doing? She was training herself. When I asked why, she told me her story... it was a mirror to my own.

A bully victim deciding to take matters into her own hands, to make herself become someone who could not be bullied.

I showed her how to use her wooden stick more effectively in a fight by showing her my sword fighting skills and having her adjust accordingly for its lack of sharp edge. Observing her, I could tell that either she had already been taught some defensive techniques or she was a dangerously fast learner.

When I told her my story, she told me not to give up. After all, she, a fairy, sought to become something greater than a mere fairy whom even the other fairies could bully. As silly as her encouragement felt, her enthusiasm somehow wore off on me.

And so, with renewed valor, I regained my ambition. If I was unsatisfied with being the greatest Tengu, I would seek to become something greater.

...

...

Never give up... I decided that, in spite my hardships and the cruel reality I was faced with, I would try to attain more power. With will comes a way, or so people like to claim.

After my training session with Yuuka, I decided to make use of one of the large waterfalls that Youkai mountain had to bath myself. I selected a location that had nobody near it and would be out of sight of most mountain patrols as I wanted my privacy.

The water was cold, which was normal given that water robs heat from objects about twenty times the rate which air of the same temperature does. When I was washing my body, I couldn't pull myself to do anything that would risk me getting a good look at my image in the water. However, my worry was eventually removed as the water flowing down me was relaxing.

_"It's like all the cares in my life have flown away," _I thought as I left the waterfall and began to dry myself.

Suddenly, my ear twitched when it picked up sound. Specifically a combination of noises creating the type of noise called speech.

"Hello, I um...no, that's not it. The fish green, no..." This feminine voice was not one I recognized. I turned my head to look at the source of the of it.

Red eyes and short violet blue hair. Wearing a white and red shirt, a long black skirt, and a hat with a red bow and two long ribbons extending out. She has a white and red shawl entwined along her arms and blouse. Both the shawl and the shirt glows in scarlet color. Her skin, hair and eyes were beautiful. This was enhanced by her gentle floating in the air.

Oh yes, Iku Nagae, an Oarfish who senses environmental dangers and then informs people about them. Although I didn't know her name at the time. Her company was probably the most pleasant I've had in my life... although that may have been because our interaction had been so short that she never had the chance to annoy me.

She seemed troubled.

"What is wrong?" I ask her.

"I was just here to tell the surface dwellers that a large Earthquake was going to happen," she answered, looking down at me from where she was floating. She seemed to carry an air of confident seriousness.

"What were you saying earlier?" I asked.

"That? I was trying to be poetic in coming up with ways to tell people about the Earthquakes. Being a simple messenger has been becoming tiresome of late, so I thought I'd try to making my messages more interesting."

"Well, dear beast, I have delivered the message. So please inform everyone else in the vicinity." I immediately caught her mistake. The moment she finished her sentence, I corrected her.

"I am not a beast, I am a Tengu."

"Oh, sorry. I just thought you were a beast of the wolf variety since you had no issues with nudity."

Yes, Tengu have a bigger demand on appearances than beasts. Thus, if someone did not know the subtle differences in appearance between a Hakurou Tengu and Wolf Beast who was in humanoid form, the best way to tell them apart would be their actions.

But my concerns laid in the fact that I was naked and in front of a woman in public. Since I had such poor manners in front of a non-Tengu, this would have been considered an even bigger offense to our laws and customs.

"Huh? Oh-I'm so sorry!" I shouted as I quickly reached for my hakama and used it to cover my front. Iku chuckled at my display of embarrassment.

"No need to be so embarrassed," she assured me, "Although I am curious as to why you're bathing here."

"It's a long story but I'd be happy to tell you," I answered. The reality was that I was happy to avoid any bad rumors about myself speading.

"I could use the company as I pass the message of the Earthquake around to the residents of the land."

She left me to pass the message on to another Tengu, and then she promptly returned. I was fully dressed by the time she got back. And so the two of us talked while flying together around Gensokyo. When she informed people about the Earthquakes, I practiced various physical and magical exercises while waiting for her.

I knew not to give up, but my question was how was what I was to do next.

"It seems to me that your problem stems from your emotions. That is to say; you seem to be the type of individual who is almost always better off using logic and reason instead of emotion and intuition," she told me.

That explained why the battles I thought clearly about how to defeat my enemies were so much easier.

"I'm not saying you should give up your emotions entirely, I'm saying you may want to consider trying to keep them under better control. Of course, this is merely my suggestion."

"Thank you, I will repay this debt I owe you," I tell her.

"Oh, you don't need to give me anything in return," she responded. "I'm just doing the right thing."

The right thing to do... to be honest, I had never thought of that before.

Perhaps this belief in doing "the right thing" was what compelled me to attack the Oni and save the human. The human must have seen me the way I saw Iku, to a greater extent.

Although the concept was a little foreign, I understood the premise. But even if she didn't want something in return, I wanted to give her something in return.

"Even so, I won't be at peace if I don't repay you," I inform her. She looked away from me for a moment, thinking about my demand to pay her back. After a few moments of silence, she looked back to me.

"Well, if you're that determined..." she paused for a moment. Thinking back on it, her face had been gradually becoming pinker even before she started that sentence. She was hesitant but eventually she gave me an answer.

"I-I guess seeing you topless after losing a few pounds of fat should suffice."

Iku's ability to keep herself composed amazed me given the way she acted when she saw me naked.

Had it been one of the more commonly minded Tengu men, I would suspect them to attempt to flirt with her while saying yes or they would take it as an insult for being considered overweight. Had it been me as I am now, I think that I would've felt slightly bashful but otherwise be uncaring, and thus accept giving such payment. However, at the time, I could feel the heat in my face rise up, indicating how absurdly embarrassed I was, even when trying to force out a "Yes."

"If it embarrasses you so much, you don't have to do it," she said.

"No, I'll do it."

"Alright, I'll hold you to that."

Shortly after agreeing to her request, we came to the last area she needed to pass the information around. After speaking to the people there, she turned to me one more time.

"Since that was the last area that needed to be informed about the Earthquake, I will return to the clouds. I enjoyed the company, Mr. Ito and look forward to having another constructive conversation with you when the opportunity arises."

"It was my pleasure, Ms. Nagae."

Iku turned and flew up into the sky to and I turned and took to the air to return to Youkai Mountain.

Today was not such a bad day after all.

...

The day was over, and I was in my room. My pen touched the paper for my journal...

_"I met a plant fairy and an aesthetically pleasing Oarfish woman today. My conversations with them were... productive."_

This journal entry lacked purpose. Although I did not change the subject, I changed the tone.

_"My recent experiences have opened my eyes, even I can still improve myself. And so I will be testing a magic draining item I have begun to develop. The best I can have it do is drain 90% of my initial amount. That said, my magical power will be nearly doubled by the time I have finished adjusting to it enough to take it off. It won't make me the most powerful magic user among the Tengu, but it will up my raw magical strength from being merely above average. I have taken liberties to make a similar outcome with my life force. Unfortunately, the upper limit of drainage is at 70%, but it's acceptable since I'm not nearly as versed with the utilization of one's life force."_

Of course, the magical energies bled from me would go to waste. I was not interested in being wasteful.

_"To not let the magical and life energies of mine go to waste, I will see about storing what was drained into something for later use. If my calculations are correct, then if I can accumulate more than 50 years worth. Perhaps I can even transform myself into a more powerful being than even Surudoi himself."_

I did finish the seal for that. In fact, when I committed as much of what I knew objectively to the scroll stored False Memory Charm, I had opted putting in that particular discovery. If my offspring wanted to know how to make an effective magic and life force battery, they would have to discover it themselves.

I continued to write.

_"It is questionable why none of my colleagues, even those more versed in magic or simply more intelligent than I, haven't decided to do this or even seem to have thought this up. Of course, they may be hiding this from public eyes. I will do the same and not bring it up."_

I closed the journal.

**Author's Notes:**

Special Thanks to Kaiser Dude, Captain Vulcan and Demon Neko Shen for proof reading this chapter.

Woah, 9k words without the AN? I didn't think I had it in.

The Evil Spirit, as you can see, was inspired by Mima. However, whether it was actually Mima or not will be up to the writers and Staff of the Danmakuverse since it will no longer factor into this story. Why it probably can't be Mima is because when youkai die, they may become phantoms (not 100% sure on this) and might go to the afterlife, but they do not become spirits, thus they cannot turn into Vengeful Spirits when escaping Hell or Old Hell. Given that Vengeful Spirits and treated the same as Earth Spirits and Evil Spirits, I would suspect that this Evil Spirit could not be Mima as she would have to reappear as an Evil Spirit in canon. (Or would she? I think she might have said something about not being an actual Evil Spirit, but...)

As for the Tengu God, he is an Earth deity according to traditional Japanese lore (assuming Wikipedia isn't lying). That is why I had it that some people worship him as an Earth god and not the Tengu God.

The Veteran Tengu's last name is based on the Chinese word for Tengu, or rather Chinese for the same thing that Tengu means. Probably a family that interbred with the Tengu race before the Hakurei Barrier was erected.

For those of you who thought this chapter was too long, I promise the remainder of the flash back chapters will be shorter.

And while I would want the outcomes to remain the same, I feel as though I did not make Sasuke struggle enough for his hard to get victories. But this is what I could produce, so I hope you liked it.


	14. Chapter -2: He who lacks Intimacy

When I started getting ready to return home for the day, I noticed one of my former classmates sitting on a rock with a look of sadness on her face.

"What's wrong?" I asked my sister-in-arms. Momiji looked up at me with a face of depression and told me what was bothering her.

"I can't find anyone to play Dai Shōgi with me."

As if she didn't expect me to try to comfort her, her gaze fell back down to the ground she was sitting on.

I do recall her asking one of the other Tengu to play with her, but was rejected for being no fun to play with. I never hear of her being a sore loser or a cheater, so there is a possibility that she is having trouble because no one wants to waste their time playing Dai Shōgi with her. This was odd since there were many guardsmen who loved to play Dai Shōgi.

Regardless, she was depressed over this. If she did not recover from the depression, it would hinder her performance as a guardsman.

With these two factors, logic dictated that someone should remove the problem. Since I was the only individual present...

"I'll play with you."

Momiji's ears perked up, her saddened face turned into one of a sort of confused shock when it looked back up at me.

"R-really!?" she asked. I simply nodded in response. Her face turned bright and transformed into excitement and happiness. On top of it all, her tail started wagging.

"THANK YOU!" she squealed with excitement, but there was no need for her to thank me as it was the logical thing to do.

Looking back on it, this would eventually lead to many things.

"Wow, you suck at this game."

"Shut up!"

**Things that happened less than a decade ago...**

The cool air was everywhere this morning, something expected as it was not Summer.

There were so many clouds that even the mountain sized, dragon-like creature could hardly be seen as it flew over the Forest of Magic. Of course, since the creature rarely appeared, those who waited to see it would have been disappointed this century, unless they dared fly above the clouds.

Although I was thinking of attempting to find out how the reptile manages to keep itself so far away from Youkai mountain that even the Tengu with the best eyes could not see it, I had more important things to attend to.

Near the foot of Youkai mountain was a house owned by two goddesses who ruled over the season of cooling, which we have come to call Autumn.

When I approached the house, I could see a woman with blond hair wearing a red dress. Unfortunately, she was wearing shoes, something the goddess I wanted to meet with did not wear. When she saw me, she looked at me and began to speak.

"One of the Tengu, greetings!" She paused for a moment and looked like she was going to say something. So I waited for her to responded. "You're Sasuke Ito, right?"

"Yes, ma'am," I clarify.

"Miss," she corrected me.

"Yes, Miss." Before I could bring up the reason I came here, she began the topic.

"So I was right," she said with a smile.

"Right about what?" Me being a Tengu? My name being Sasuke Ito? Me coming here at this time of day?

She clarified what she meant.

"Oh, I'm sorry. It's just I only know a handful of names of Tengu, and even fewer faces to match them to."

"Shizuha? I've been here before, but I don't think I've met you personally."

"I know, I only recognize you from the newspaper."

...

_"Wait, I've been here more than once, and you only recognize me from a newspaper?"_ I mentally asked at the time.

"Newspaper?" was the only word that came out of my mouth.

"I get a newspaper from the Crow Tengu. The latest one had an article about a Dai Shōgi tournament, you placed for 2nd among the Tengu, right?"

_"So the rumors that the long-lived woman's newspaper company is delivering newspapers to non-Tengu are true."_

"2nd among the Hakurou," I corrected her, "I tied for 10th among all the Tengu."

Although some of the Dai Tengu wanted to use the tournament as a factor to determine the Alpha Hakurou Tengu, (as they were not convinced that they had enough information to work with from the prior tournaments), too many Karasu, Hanataka and Yamabushi Tengu wanted to play as well.

Among the Hakurou, I was only surpassed by the head of the Inubashiri family, who had by now replaced her older brother who lost his position when several decades ago. I remember the family members being ashamed of the Captain since he lost to me in the fight and then began praising Momiji for her not losing against me.

"Anyways, what brings you here, Mr. Ito?"

"I'm here to meet with Minoriko."

"That's too bad, she's out at the moment. What did you need?"

"I came to appeal to her for a fertility blessing."

"You sure you need to do that?" I raised my eyebrow as her question, she saw my subtle movement and knew I wanted her to elaborate.

"You look like you have too much fertility as it is. Maybe you should redistribute it instead of asking for more."

...

Why was she staring at my hakama?

After a second, she looked back up and let out a soft, amused giggle.

"Nevermind, forget I brought it up," she told me.

"Sister, you're not harassing my followers, are you?" This came from another woman. Given that this individual had red eyes and blond hair, a poofy-sleeved yellow blouse and a red dress which went about halfway up her chest with black straps over the shoulders all as well as a red apron which had a wheat pattern at the bottom on top of it all; I assumed that this was Minoriko Aki, one of Gensokyo's goddesses of harvest and fertility.

She looked like she was missing her hat.

"You really should know your place, elder sister," she said.

"Hey, he's extremely healthy, he probably doesn't need a fertility blessing as it is," Shizuha said in defense. Again, I didn't see the validity of her argument. However, now that there was a moment of silence, I would elaborate on what I wanted.

"It's not for me. Someone in the Ito family just got married, and they wanted to have children right away. I was asked to appeal to the goddess of harvest on their behalf," Minoriko immediately responded.

"I cannot give them a direct fertility blessing. However the fruits, vegetables and grains must be grown and harvested in my name."

To harvest something in Minoriko's name... If I recall correctly, you need to use the most archaic methods possible while acknowledging her.

She continued giving me the instructions.

"Those who wish to receive a blessing to the strongest degree should not only eat the food harvested in my name, but also be the ones who grow and harvest it in my name."

_"So not only do they have to eat the harvested food, they have to till it themselves. Less work for me."_

"As you already know,"

_"Why are you bringing it up then?"_

"I can only bless harvests that 'bear fruit' in the Autumn." She paused for a moment before she gave me a nod. "And I think that's everything."

"Thank you," I say before I turned to leave.

"Come visit again sometime!" Due to the voice similarities between the two goddesses, I could not tell which one spoke these words.

"I'll consider it!" I called out as I flew off. I would return to youkai mountain, inform my family on what they needed to do then begin my guard shift.

...

Hours later, I was patrolling Tengu territory on Youkai Mountain. To pass the time, I constantly shot magic between my hands. As I patrolled over the forest of Youkai Mountain, I saw something that was out of the ordinary.

Common clothing for women, at least in Tengu society. A white top that looked a lot like the Kimono, with a split bottom wear the white front reached above the knees. The sides draped out like blankets reaching the ankles of strap sandal-ed feet, and were black as the kimono's shoulders which held onto the white sleeves with red ribbon, baring the wearer's shoulders for all to see but not risking the possibility of wardrobe malfunction that disconnected sleeves had. It was all held together by a red datejime at the waist.

This was the attire of Aya Shameimaru, photographer and long lived Karasu woman.

No, it wasn't the clothing that was out of the ordinary, but what she was doing. I wouldn't know what was out of the ordinary until after the scenario was over.

"Why is this happening?" she asked herself, looking around with a serious look on her face.

"Is something the matter, Ms. Shameimaru?" I asked while flying towards her. She looked in my direction.

"Ah, Mr. Ito. A pleasure to see you."

"A pleasure to see you too. If I'm not evading, you look troubled; did something happen?"

"I lost my notepad."

"Those things you and the other reporters use? Don't you need those really badly?" I wasn't privy on all things about those in higher social status in our society, but I was fairly certain that Tengu reporters, scouts, and spies needed those like the Jiāng Shī hunters needed peach-wood weapons.

"It's not that big of a problem, though-"

"You just started delivering your newspaper to people outside of Tengu society, right? A bad first impression without a reasonable excuse will degrade your popularity."

"How did you know?" Now that I thought about it, she sounded concerned at this time. I paid her tone no mind, but did she want it to remain a secret?

"I met one of them, at least I think I did. Anyways, do you know where you dropped it?"

"In the area we're currently above."

"If you'll excuse me for a moment," I close the distance between the two of us, lean towards her and inhale through my nose. Although she appears surprised by my action, she does not react negatively, thus indicating that she understands what I'm doing.

My mind had her smell recognized, and I could tell that it was in two places the moment I pulled away. The closer, stronger smell was coming from her. But the weaker, further smell was coming from below.

I flew down to ground level and started searching.

The weaker smell was coming from one set of bushes, the ones that looked normal but were next to a set of bushes that were darker than normal.

All I did next was push the bushes aside, and there was the notebook.

"Shameimaru!" I called out, lifting the notebook up so that she could see it.

"Ah... That's amazing," Shameimaru said. She looked to be in surprise.

Someone as ancient as her probably should not have been surprised by what I just did; but at the time, it felt good to be praised like that. Perhaps she had played to my psychology? Of course, there may have been something else that I was unaware of.

"Here," I said as I handed her her book. She practically hugged it. I knew those things were important, but where they that important? Was it a personal thing?

"Thank you so much!"

Huh, I never stopped to observe it before, but smiles really are... nice?

"Oh, right! That couple in the Hakurei Clan, the wife went into labor! I have to hurry!" she exclaimed.

The reason she needed the notebook, and if she wanted that story then she would need to be there before the actual delivery happened. Or so I assumed. If I recalled correctly, the two would have a baby girl named Reimu.

"Thank you, Mr. Ito!" she called back to me as she flew off.

...

The day was over, and I was in my room. My pen touched the paper for my journal...

_"The concept of storing magical energy is as I expected. But unlike Life Energy, the concept of strengthening one's arcane power isn't so simple._ _Thankfully, my studies in sorcery have proved fruitful. It will take some time, a year at least, but I can increase my raw magical strength by 90% as I intended._"

Magic wasn't so simple as you could just cast the same spells over and over again and you're become more powerful. I learned this the hard way. But thankfully, I was able make use of my mistake.

_"My physical ability is also improving, if only by small amounts. By observing different training methods and capability levels shown by different Tengu, I was able to figure out what I can do for self improvement. If I can do this properly, I might have an increase in spontaneous strength and burst speed without undergoing unnecessary muscle hypertrophy. But this is me being optimistic with my calculations. In addition, I can increase my muscle mass slightly more without running the risk of losing stamina, speed, dexterity or balance. The estimated highest increase possible equates to roughly 50% of my initial strength. I will still remain in the "Middle third" statistic in terms of actual strength, but I will go from being merely above average to being at the top of that category."_

I still couldn't beat my friend in arm wrestling. Granted, his muscles are at least five times bigger than my own, so losing to him wouldn't be a surprise even if mine were of superior quality.

_"Unfortunately, these results may not be conclusive, I will have to keep this all in mind."_

I was getting impatient with writing in my journal, so I ended it.

_"My body has recovered, I'm going to resume physical training and sword practice before returning to my research. That is assuming that I do not become too tired."_

I closed the journal.

* * *

**Author's Note:**

Thanks to Captain Vulcan and Kaiser Dude for proof reading. Sorry for the bad title, I couldn't think of a better one.

My apologies to anyone who wanted this chapter to be longer. I was going to have a huge subplot involving the Hakurei, but due to its content, it had nothing to do with "Tengu everyday life" nor was it necessary to overhanging plot.

Now, for some questions!

Was Sasuke cursed to remain only second best to Momiji in the game "large chess" from the beginning? Or did Momiji go from a complete zero to the God of Games? That... is for you to decide. Or for the people who write stuff for Danmakuverse to decide if they want to make relevant material.

As always, thanks for reading!


	15. Chapter -1: He who lacks Enjoyment

People often forget how important the little things are.

You say that you will take an arrow for her, but you won't clean up the mess you made?

You claim that you can't live in a life without him, yet you refuse to make him bamboo shoots for dinner?

Sometimes the word holds more strength in it than the sword.

**Just like it did last year...**

It was a small place right outside of Tengu territory owned by a family of foxes and fox youkai who served anyone who was willing to get along with their kind. Or so they claim; I've only seen youkai foxes come here.

"Three cheers for the man himself!" my giant friend shouted.

"Please stop," I pleaded. Such things made me feel uncomfortable. It was odd; even when I wanted to boast and brag about my triumphs, if I had any, I couldn't handle being recognized to this degree very well.

"WOOZOW! WOOZOW! WOOZOW!" Momiji shouted.

"Why are we even here?" I asked, gesturing the food and sake stand we were at.

"Because, you refused to have a party held in your honor when you got first or second place in one of the tournaments. Since you placed third in this one, we're celebrating!" the big nosed man booms with enthusiasm. I merely raise my eyebrow.

"This is a party? There's only three of us."

"Get together, whatever. The point is that we're going to have fun and you're going to like it!"

"I think I'd rather go home and mast-"

"You're going to be the center of this party even if I have to beat the ever-loving crap out of you!"

"I find that your belief in your ability to follow that course of action is an illogical assumption," I retorted. He may have been stronger than me, but I was tougher, faster and more skilled in fighting.

"Stop fighting you two, if Sasuke wants to leave from his own party because he can't hold his drink, then let him," said the owner of the stand.

"A Tengu that's a bad drinker? Blasphemy!" Momiji shouted.

"These are the worst strippers ever!" Okay, I don't know who said that.

"With the Oni driven out of Gensokyo, we have no excuse for not being the best drinkers in Gensokyo!" Momiji continued.

"What about the devils? What about the deities? What about Sake based creatures?" I asked.

"Hey Sasuke."

"What?"

"Shut up!"

The first real conversation would be in regards to how only a few people would need sight correcting tools.

"Hey Sasuke, now that I think about it, why were you meeting up with that bookworm before the Sorcery Tournament?" my big nosed friend asked me.

"I was returning the glasses he lent me," I answered.

"You need glasses!?"

"Not any more. I was able to let my eyes readjust before the tournament to no longer need them."

"Wait, I thought only a small number of Hanataka needed glasses because of their work," Momiji interjected.

The Hanataka Tengu are characterized by their huge noses and their predisposition to map-making and business work. Only when there are no positions such a Tengu can fill are they then allowed to work in other lines of work. Not unlike how some of my family are not part of the guardsmen, policing, assassination or assault groups and instead made thread, yarn or string.

"Normally that's true," the Hanataka confirmed, "But that just goes to show you how much studying Sasuke must have done in preparation for the tournament."

"Sad that you got third place," Momiji looked to me, she seemed to feel sympathetic for me if my judgment of her facial expressions was accurate.

"Even so, you're insane, Sasuke."

"Says the Hanataka Tengu who insists on lifting weights to beef himself up more," I respond while averting eye contact.

"Hey, my huge body is what got us through our early days!"

After a bit of silence, the Hanataka turned to me and asked a question that would spark the next conversation. A conversation about Marriage Interviews and the Dai Tengu.

"Hey Sasuke, is it true you're thinking about marriage?"

"Not specifically. The Dai Tengu just refuse to stop pestering me about breeding." Even if I had the qualities needed for ideal Tengu soldiers as they believed, my own mentality would not allow me to be a decent romantic partner. And as absurdly powerful as my libido was, I was not interested in a purely physical relationship. This was even worse if you expected me to be a good father. That is not to say I wouldn't try being a good father, however...

"But didn't you have a Marriage Interview?"

"Yes, she is an orange haired Dai Tengu from the Northern sector of the city."

Dai Tengu had to be the most diverse (appearance wise) Tengu subspecies. Some grew so tall that you'd wonder if they were actually Daidarabotchi in disguise while others looked like freak hybrids between other subspecies of Tengu. Even those with the same Dai Tengu parents would look nothing alike.

"You're kidding me, right?"

"No, why?"

"You don't know? That woman tries to get into the hakama of every man she comes across. My wife wanted to hit me because that woman was flirting with me. I hear that the Tenma ordered her to find a husband and to stop trying to seduce other women's men."

"Plausible, but my experience with her implicated that wasn't likely."

"What do you mean?"

"I left the interview a virgin."

There was a pause between the two of us. Momiji was in the middle of drinking, probably ignoring what we were talking about.

"What happened?" my friend asked.

"During the interview, she invoked her status as a Dai Tengu and ordered me to take off my hakama. When I did, she ended the interview and apologized while saying that she wasn't interested in me."

"Shallow requirement."

"Perhaps." Given the possible sensitivity of the situation, I did not to mention the details, like how her favorite vase was destroyed by my-

"But seriously, the Dai Tengu are demanding that you get married for the sake of you breeding?"

"They think that my abilities as a guardsman will be passed down, creating a bloodline of powerful Hakurou."

"We're youkai. Doesn't that sort of thing only work with animals and plants?"

"We're youkai that breed, so it's a possibility. In addition, my family believes it is also the case and have been demanding that I find a woman as well. My parents are even threatening to disown me if I don't marry a specific kind of woman."

"Really? What kind?"

"My mother wants me to marry a Dai Tengu, my father wants me to marry anything but a Dai Tengu."

"Well that sucks."

"Not to mention the stories you tell me indicate that married life is anything but good."

"That's not true! My life as a husband and expecting father is great!"

"Then why does every story you tell me sound negative in form?"

"Because it's more interesting and I want your non-existent pity!"

"So you're an attention seeker?"

"It hurts when you put it like that."

"Regardless, I have two upset parents and a bunch of society's leaders who want me fathering children like my life depended on it."

"Maybe they'll get off your case if you ask the Tenma to back you up?"

"I already did. I was told to grow a pair of balls and find a woman," I said, lowering my head in remembrance of what happened.

"Wow, harsh," my friend said with a mildly shocked face.

"You would calculate that our great leader would be more sympathetic since the Dai Tengu are pestering Tenma to get married as well."

"Hah! Right," my friend said with a sad laugh.

After drinking her sake and asking for another cup, the female of our trio turned to me and instigated another topic.

"Speaking of which... you've met Lord Tenma personally before, right?" Momiji asked.

"Yes, and?"

"Is the Tenma a man or a woman?" Oh yes, the Tenma's sex...

"I don't know."

"What!?" the giant in our group asked with a shocked face. His yell boomed the area and caused small animals to flee.

"As in, I do not know what Lord Tenma's sex is," I calmly elaborate.

I was being honest. When I met with Lord Tenma, I actually tried to take in the scent to indicate what sex our species' leader was. I could tell that the Tenma was a Dai Tengu, but that was all. Nothing indicated it as male, female or even something else. In terms of body shape, Lord Tenma's build was slender, making it harder to tell when applied to the extremely modest clothing style that does not flatter masculine or feminine features.

And the face, I've seen more masculine faces on women as well as more feminine faces on men.

"Huh, I wonder why that's the case..."

I was happy to explain one rational possibility.

"If Lord Tenma has a sex and is purposefully making impossible for someone to know what it is, then it's to keep people from making stupid, gender restricted decisions on how to act."

There have been a lot of cases where people have been treated a specific way because of their sex. When your sex is unknown, there is no sex discrimination.

"Huh, that makes sense," Momiji commented.

The conversation would develop into thoughts on our species' two major religions.

"Of course, the Tenma cult won't simply accept the Tenma being forced to marry. Especially if they can use it as a reason for open revolt against the Dai Tengu," my friend commented.

The Tenma cult is a group of Tengu who believe that Lord Tenma is the true god of the Tengu and not Sarutahiko Ōkami. It was founded on the grounds that Lord Tenma did more good to the entirety of the Tengu species than all other Dai Tengu combined. And since it was Sarutahiko that dictated that the Dai Tengu were to rule over the other Tengu races, those who feel wronged by the Dai Tengu's rule feel that they should hate Sarutahiko for making their lives so bad to begin with.

Since the doctrine of the Tenma Cult is that Lord Tenma is not a Dai Tengu and that the Dai Tengu are the scum of the earth, the Dai Tengu feel threatened even if the number of followers of the old Tengu ways outnumber the Tenma Cult 2 to 1.

I would guess that Lord Tenma realizes that opposing the Dai Tengu families risks them to take countermeasures, such as possible assassination. Alternatively, if the Tenma gives in to the wishes of the Dai Tengu, that will risk angering the Tenma Cult enough to open another Tengu Civil War.

Then there are those who want nothing to do with either religion since their lives are not majorly blessed by either. If that war happens, they will be the ones who suffer the most.

But with every passing decade, more and more Tengu either become part of the Tenma Cult or give up the major Tengu religions altogether. If the Dai Tengu don't come up with a legit method of dealing with this, they will lose the power and comfort they wield and love, and allowing the Tenma to act against their wishes would be a sign of them losing control over the situation as well as Tengu society.

"Now that I think about it, the Tenma is probably in the best position. If the Dai Tengu kill off Lord Tenma, only the smallest amount of truth needs to get out and the Tenma Cult will create a civil war, Tenma will be a martyr and gets after death revenge on the Dai Tengu. If the Tenma refuses to marry another Dai Tengu, and either marries someone of a lower subspecies or refuses to marry at all then the Tenma Cult will use this as fuel towards the image of the Tenma being more benevolent to the lesser Tengu or as a deity," I explained.

"But what if the Tenma want's to marry a Dai Tengu?" Momiji asked, "Not because of the Dai Tengu's pressuring, but because the Tenma is legitimately in love with a Dai Tengu?"

"Chances are, the Tenma can pacify the Tenma Cult. It will weaken the resolve of the Tenma Cult but even then, Lord Tenma will remain in power."

So long as Lord Tenma knew what to do, all roads ended in victory.

Unlike the Yamabushi Tengu who would get the worst ending out of everything. Speaking of which, two people would join our sad excuse for a party. Aya Shameimaru and a man who worked for her who was such a Tengu.

"I told you to call me Aya!" she told him. They were clearly in mid conversation by the time they were close enough for us to hear them. He responded.

"Uh, Ms. Aya-"

"Drop the Ms.," she interrupted, "We've known each other for a long time! We're practically brother and sister!"

"Aya, I need to go train with the other Yamabushi!" he pleaded.

"Your wife told me to keep you out drinking and then to bring you home the moment you're smashed, so you're drinking with me!"

"Why would my wife want that?" he asked with a worried look.

Better pray to Sarutahiko Ōkami that it's something good. And you're stuck since your employer is a Karasu since that means she can practically order you around with less fear of repercussions.

We Tengu have a caste system.

On the social status scale, Lord Tenma is the single most powerful being in all of the Tengu Society.

Following that, while the Dai Tengu do not individually have nearly as much power as Lord Tenma, they actually could be considered more powerful should enough of them unite in opinion.

The first major gap is between the Dai Tengu and the Hanataka Tengu. Closely after the Hanataka are the Karasu. So although the Hanataka are socially superior to the Karasu, the difference in social rank isn't so high that a Hanataka can put a Karasu under his heel.

The second major gap is between the Karasu and the Hakurou. And right below the Hakurou are the Yamabushi, or so we the Hakurou like to think. The reality is that the social ranks of Yamabushi and Hakurou fluctuate in height as time goes by. But the fact remains that they are our species' "Printers," you can imagine how much work Yamabushi are forced to do.

That's not to say that their lives are that much worse than the life of a human's from the human village when at its worst. But it's still not the paradise that humans think it is even when at its best.

"Hey you three, mind if we join you?" Aya asked.

"Yes, we mind," Momiji spat.

"Hey now, this is supposed to be a happy time for everyone!" the big-noised giant sitting next to me said.

"I'll take a bowl of ramen, please," the Yamabushi asked the owner of the stand.

"We don't carry that," said owner replied.

"Then what about some rice?"

"Coming right up!"

I knew that the Yamabushi Tengu were the most proficient Tengu when it came to the ability to use chi, but it wasn't until I noticed that the mountain Tengu was mediating that I would really go find out more than common knowledge about it.

"Hey, what are you doing?" I asked Aya's employee.

"Making chop sticks out of my life force," he answered as chop sticks materialized into his hands. He had a set in each hand. I found this peculiar.

"Why did you make two sets?"

"If I make two of the same object on the mirror opposite sides of my body, it's easier than simply making a single item."

"You're not going to put them down?"

"The second pair? No, if I let go of it, it will dissipate and the life energy will return to my body."

"I... see."

The next conversation would be instigated by the man who demanded that we had this party.

"So Aya, what's new with you?" the group's big guy asked.

"Well, there was an incident at the Hakurei Shrine. I was the first to get the whole scoop! It will be in the Bunbunmaru paper tomorrow!"

"Ah come on, Aya! We wanna hear about it now!" he insisted.

"If I tell you now, there won't be any point in you reading my newspaper."

True, if we hear it straight from the woman herself, the value in reading her paper will diminish. Of course, there's the possibility that it doesn't matter since we're all going to inevitably get drunk.

"Please?"

"Alright, fine. Over half the Hakurei Clan was at the shrine, then suddenly something appeared and started killing them off. However, the last remaining Hakurei present resolved the problem."

"Who was it?"

"That prodigy girl, Reimu."

"Not surprising. She's not the best of the clan, but she was born with a ton of a divine power, more than any Hakurei to date. If anyone in her age group could have pulled it off, it would be her."

"Sad that she trains less than the other kids and ends up being the one who survive."

Such is the mindset of those born with more to work with than others, they become arrogant or sloppy. However, you do not hear people talk poorly about our late "Alpha Hakurou," even when he probably acted far worse. Such hypocrisy is that of the Tengu.

"And that's all I'm going to tell you,"

"Ah no! I can't wait for the paper tomorrow!"

Yes you can.

"It's a good thing you became a newspaper reporter and journalist, Aya. Otherwise, I wouldn't get to read such a great newspaper!"

Not all Karasu are newspaper reporters. But they are called our species' "nimble information corps" for a reason. While some Karasu do not follow this trend, the vast majority are either reporters, journalists, or act as messengers. Some are even trained in scouting, spying, and sabotage.

If Aya wanted, she probably could have decided to be something else.

"Now that I think about it, there's been an increasing number of incidents revolving unknown youkai, right?" Momiji asked. The Yamabushi answered her.

"Ah yes. There was this peculiar one that has been eluding the eyes of the Tengu information network. Whatever it is, it's strong, and it can either turn invisible or leave the area fast enough before anyone can get there and begin gathering information on it."

"Sounds like a job too tough for even the Bunbunmaru to handle," Momiji chided with a grin.

"What was that?" Aya asked, her head snapping to Momiji.

"Hey! Didn't I say this was supposed to be a happy time for everyone!?" my increasingly loud friend shouted, his booming voice making the two girls stop. Even if they could both kick his ass, his yells were intimidating.

...

Or maybe they promptly ganged up and beat the fecal matter out of him. I don't remember.

...

A few minutes later, I stopped eating the bamboo shoots I ordered.

"Well, it's been fun everyone, as odd as it is for me to say, but I need to return home and continue my research."

I was about to stand to leave when the mass of muscle objected.

"Hey, Sasuke! You're not allowed to leave your own party while it's still going on!"

"I really need to leave."

"At least try some of this ultra-strength sake before you go!"

"I need to be sober if I want to finish my research and have plenty of time for sleep."

"See it as a test of fortitude! Wanna know who has the most fortitude among everyone present?" In hindsight, it was obvious what he was trying to do, to trap me here at this celebration. But I took the bait.

"Wait, did someone mention a drinking contest?" Momiji asked.

"WOOHOO! YEAH DRINKING CONTEST! Break out the bottles and the Sake Bugs! We're all getting wasted tonight! Winner gets his sake paid for by the losers!"

Myself, a Hakurou Tengu; Momiji, another Hakurou Tengu; my giant, married friend who was also a Hanataka Tengu; Aya, a Karasu Tengu; her married employee, a Yamabushi Tengu.

Five Tengu, none of which were part of the "nobility" of the Tengu society, came together this night to have a drinking contest in honor of one of them getting third place in an even bigger contest in which battles were performed using magic.

Several minutes later...

"And the mountain priest is the first to go down!" my childhood bud shouted.

"Not fair, I'm not used to these sorts of things," Aya's employee whined.

"Neither is Sasuke, and he's not complaining."

"Sasuke is notorious for being a stamina freak."

Several minutes passed again before someone dropped, this time it was the Hanataka.

"Hah! Looks like that huge body of yours did you nothing!" the Yamabushi laughed.

"It let me beat you," the long nosed man pointed out before collapsing.

The smaller married man said nothing. He probably glared at my friend, but I didn't pay attention because I was too busy drinking sake.

Several minutes later...

"And the two women finally pass out!" one of the married men cheered. What, was he planning on raping them in their sleep? I was pretty sure that was legally and socially unacceptable on Youkai Mountain.

"I think Momiji got a head start on drinking, so she won," the other married man added.

"Nah, Aya caught up and leapfrogged her!" the other argued.

I didn't care which one was right, but even in my drunken stupor, I found their fight to be idiotic. Looking back on it, I was clearly drunk because I tried drinking more to drown out their stupidity when I should have done something more logical in reaction.

"Hey, look at him go!"

"No... way!"

"Sasuke, you are amazing!"

I placed my cup down and looked at them.

"Since I won, can I stop now and go home?" I asked.

"Hey, I wanna see how much you can drink before you drop!" the high nosed man said.

"Why?"

"Chug! Chug! Chug!" Yes, he has officially lost it.

"What does this serve the purpose of?"

Before he could answer, the smaller of the two married men shouted out while pointing another man who had been at the food stand.

"Hey, look at the Archer Tengu go!"

"You invited the Archer here!?" I asked. A stupid question, obviously he tagged along for the partying atmosphere.

"Never mind that, he's been drinking ever since Aya and I got here!"

"Looks like you have to play catch up, Sasuke," the Hanataka said.

"Game over, man. He's the guy who beat everyone in the Ibiki house in a drinking contest, and he wasn't even old enough to legally drink when he did it!"

_"Perhaps that explains his mental issues. But there is no such thing as something that can't be defeated. I'll overcome this lunatic myself!"_ I thought to myself as I resumed drinking. All I had to do was catch up with him.

...

The contest ended a few minutes later, I was never able to catch up.

Although I would never admit it, I did have some fun.

...

The day was over, and I was in my room. My pen touched the paper for my journal...

_"I have finally found it, how to increase the power of my magical application most effectively while making minimal changes to the drainage system that is already in place. Now that I've applied the final adjustments, I can relax and wait while the tool I've created does its work. However, this does not mean I can simply ignore my training."_

Before I forgot, I would want to put something else in.

_"Speaking about not remaining lax, I noticed a problem with how Lord Tenma was acting yesterday. I will not go into details in case this journal is read by someone else and the problem I perceived is far less of a problem that I have predicted."_

No, this was not the Tenma's lack of empathy to my problems in regards to finding a spouse. This was something I didn't mention to anyone.

_"And so, the final entry to this journal will not be a message to you, but a message to myself: Do no trust the Tenma."_

**Author's Note:**

Thanks to Kaiser for proofreading.

Actually, I am planning on giving Sasuke a girlfriend and/or wife (in the event of "and," the girlfriend and the wife will be one in the same) from canon. Captain Vulcan knows who it is, Kaiser Dude knows who is isn't (of course, I'll consider changing it if they spoil it).

To build up non-existent suspense, here's a hint; it's a canon character.

...wait, you all already know that! Did I get my work mixed up!? *rifles through notes* ARGH! I LOST THE HINT I WAS GOING TO GIVE YOU ALL TO LEAVE YOU IN SUSPENSE!

Of course, if I discover I'm really bad at pairing people together, I might decide to have him remain single.

Anyways, this is the effective social hierarchy of the Tengu that I am using.

_-High Social Tier:_

Tenma - Lord of the Tengu.

Dai - Great Tengu.

_-Mid Social Tier:_

Hanataka - "Long-nose" or "High-nose" Tengu.

Karasu - Crow Tengu.

_-Low Social Tier:_

Hakurou - White Wolf Tengu

Yamabushi - "mountain-dwelling," "mountain-priest" or "Shugendo monk" Tengu

However, it may change in the future depending on how Danmakuverse develops... assuming that the story that is canon to Danmakuverse doesn't end with one of the previous endings I posted.


	16. Chapter -0: He who lacks

If I'm seeing my past like this, I must be in Higan and being judged. Odd, I don't remember coming across the Sanzu River. Of course, unless I've been reincarnated and don't know it, I have never been dead before so I don't know if Phantoms see life differently from when they were living youkai.

A full moon? This was... recent...

**Almost a month ago...**

"Oh, hello Mr. Ito."

I raised my head and saw Iku Nagae floating down towards the ground.

"Hello Iku, another message about an Earthquake?" I asked.

"No. I was requested by one of the Kappa to come here and help them with some tool from the outside world they came across that apparently requires electricity to operate."

"I see."

"However, it seems they aren't here like they said they would be. Is it alright if I wait here?"

"You may."

These conversations with the Oarfish were not uncommon. Although the topics usually lacked much emotion in them. Of course, this was to be expected when talking to someone as rational as Ms. Nagae.

We would keep talking until the Kappa would come running and then beg Iku for forgiveness before they left to deal with what the Kappa wanted. Then I would wait until my shift was over and return home.

"Sasuke, make love to me," Iku said, gently pushing me onto my back.

...

Wait, what?

"You also need this," she said with a soothing voice. She pressed her small, light body into mine. I could feel her softness pressing against my chest; she started to disrobe her clothing.

...

Huh!?

Very soon, the only clothing she had was her hat and her scarf which bended and curved around her body only to cover her chest and pelvic areas.

Wait, what's going on!? This never happened in the past! Surely I would remember something as significant as being flirted with, let alone being seduced!

Wait, the sexually attractive devil woman flirted with me and tried to seduce me-

That's right!

The last thing I remember was being stabbed multiple times by a human maid! I was in enemy territory! Being killed is the most likely thing to happen; but this, this dream that is clearly not a memory, is clear evidence that I am still alive! If I wait around here too long, I may die in the physical realm!

_!mlaer lacisyhp eht ni eid yam I ,gnol oot ereh dnuora tiaw I fI !evila llits ma I taht ecnedive raelc si ,yromem a ton ylraelc si taht maerd siht ,siht tub ;neppah ot gniht ylekil tsom eht si dellik gnieB !yrotirret ymene ni saw I !diam namuh a yb semit elpitlum debbats gnieb saw rebmemer I gniht tsal ehT Life of the Tengu!_

_**WAKE UP!**_

* * *

**A word from the Mephiles666:**

Thank you, Kaiser Dude and Demon Neko Shen for proofreading this. Thank you everyone who has proof read this fic up until this point.

Thank you, everyone who has read this fic this far. After receiving the opinions of 3 of my readers and their reasons why they thought I should do what they suggested, I have come to a decision:

I will not change the title or rating of this fic nor will I end it.

From here on, the genre will be changed from NOT being a Slice of Life fanfic (which technically it simply remains the same being "Fantasy"). The current plot will remain the same. I am making this decision for content reasons (even if it isn't slice of life anymore) and because there more people in favor of that.

I will not be changing the official rating since the first 16 chapters are T rating content. However, the content following this chapter may be stronger in terms of violence. I intend for the content not to be so strong as that this fic will require a M rating. However; if you feel that this fic may become rated M from here on out due to violence, then I advise that you only read further if you are 17 or older or have permission from a parent or other legal guardian to read such material. You are on your honor.

If some official person reads this fic and demands that I make it rated M, I'll change it, but until then, _Life of the Tengu_ remains rated T for Teen.


	17. Chapter 9

My dreams were, for the most part, memories of my past. That last segment, however, was not part of my past as it never happened.

In addition, that dream could not be have been conjured up due to pent-up frustration. I know this because my hakama is clean and I tend to my own frustrations daily specifically to avoid problems related to them.

This means that the final segment of my dream was just that, a normal dream. A dream that did not predict the future, was not retelling the past, or even conjured due to physical conditions. It was a simple dream, my subconscious trying to help me evaluate myself.

I will not bother analyzing its meaning at this time as I have a job to do. Last thing I remembered, I was defeated horribly by the human maid. I do not need to be distracted.

...

I open my eyes to find myself somewhere dark, suffocating and damp. Judging from the air pressure, I am neither on ground level nor in the sky; it is a strong probability that I am underground.

Looking around, I see no immediate threats in front of me. Perhaps there's danger above?

... No, there is nothing above me besides a brick roof. I should check my other senses...

Assuming that my nose is working, I can smell blood below me.

I look down to see that I am on top of a corpse. A Tengu corpse's chest cavity completely blown out, and major damage to the rest of the body as well! There is another body to my right, also dead. And a third body... or rather, the remains of a third body.

There is a forth body to my left-

Aya Shameimaru.

Aya? It's Aya?!

I've seen her fight, I've seen her fight! Among all the Tengu I have come across, her power over the wind surpasses my own! It may only be a theoretical estimate based on observations but no actually attempted application, but she should be deadlier than me, even if only slightly.

If she lost while she had help, what chance do I have against an enemy who wiped them out!?

There's no hope! There's no hope!**  
**

...**  
**

Wait, no... this is the same, the same as that time with the Evil Spirit. My fear took a hold of me and I made a less-than-perfect decision because of it. Just like with my arrogance. My emotions creating desires beyond the necessity of survival have been the source of my problems.

And in this specific incident, the worst has been pride.

Tengu Pride.

_"Strong, fast, intelligent, and without weakness. Like the wind, unbound by the lesser being. That is the Tengu. I am the Tengu, and I am the greatest of youkai. Those who challenge the honor of the Tengu will be overcome honorably."_

Not only is this the basis of all religions of the Tengu, it is the core of the Tengu itself. Even when I do not take oath to any of the major Tengu religions, this still holds fast to me. This is the same pride that dictated that I fight the gate-guard and the librarian by playing by their own rules. And by playing by said rules, I wasted time and strength when I could have simply utilized their weaknesses in a truer manner than fighting uphill battles to which I had to rely on endurance and wit.

While it appears to be a great display of power, it is a complete disregard of logic.

Even if my pride as a Tengu is nothing compared to the pride of other Tengu, the fact remains that it is pride and that pride has cost me dearly.

The chance to save everyone, gone just like that. My fear and my arrogance could be remedied. But this, this failure, it cannot be truly salvaged.

Because of the Tengu Pride, I have failed my mission in a time when failure was not an option.

This pathetic excuse, this decision to be pathetic can be removed by forcing one's self to judge everything, not based on emotional value, but based on known facts, probabilities and possibilities.

If I let myself be overtaken with fear here, I will die. I know this is a possibility given that four Tengu are dead and I am in the same chamber as they are.

I do not want to die.

Fact: The murder of Karasu-Tengu was ambushed. If I make sure that I am not ambushed, I will have an edge they did not have.

...

This dark place has little to no light, I will need to figure out what is here.

And so, I pay attention and listen for even the quietest sound-

...

A thump, subtle and repetitive, is coming from down and behind my left.

A heartbeat is... behind me?

Looking behind me, I see nothing except for the corpses. Wait... Aya, the thumping is coming from her. That is, her heart is beating.

She's still alive!

Looking at her closely, I can tell that her skin has yet to lose its complexion nor has her body started the degeneration process. However, her body's wounds weren't healing, or was healing really slowly.

When a youkai's body isn't healing, it usually means either that their ability to heal is being inhibited, or they are so drained that their body can't keep it up. Regardless of the reason, she is in need of dire help which I can't give her here.

Or can I? I check my body for anything... aside from the cloths I am wearing, I find nothing. This means I must remove Aya from the area myself.

But where is the exit? ... There, less than 10 meters away. It is hard to see, but I can tell there is a red door.

My ear picks up a faint "click" sound off in the distance.

Wait, what was that sound? A step? No, several and they are repetitive. They are becoming gradually louder and louder. I turn my head to see the source of the foot steps.

Female, small, appears to be child. She has red eyes, short blond hair which is tied into a single ponytail on the left side. She is wearing a red dress and vest, with a pink shirt underneath. Sticking out of her back appears to be two wings made of... iron and crystals?

Examining her presence, she smells like that of a Devil, but... it's not the same. Is it because she's young, or perhaps she's a different type of youkai altogether? Koakuma did say that there were two "vampires" living here... of course that would require that she was telling the truth.

How long ago did Hong adopt the maid? Was it even the maid she adopted? Or perhaps one of us misunderstood the situation?

If Koakuma works as much as she seems to in the library, it is quite possible that she has little interaction with the people in the rest of the mansion. Thus her perception is messed around with.

I have too little to make assumptions on. Before I can try anything, I need more information.

"Hey, you here to play, too?" she asks me, tilting her head to the side while staring at me, "Sakuya said I could use you to amuse myself with."

Stay on their good side, try not to trigger anything.

"I probably can, but that depends on what is it that I need to do," I inform her.

"Hm?"

"Can you explain, verbally, what you want to play and how do we play it?" I ask her. She starts talking about what it is she wants to play.

"Well, there is this game called _Bullet Curtain_..."

Fact; I know nothing about this girl. Safest course of action; assume she can do anything. Test theories safely.

I envision a woman talking to another woman.

_"You are a bitch!"_

... No reaction, she is still talking. This indicates that she cannot read my mind. I can try reading her memories.

"Excuse me?" I interrupt her.

"Hm?" she turns and looks at me.

"Do you have a fever?"

"What?" she asks with a perplexed face.

"You look like you have a fever." A blatant lie on my part, but possibly necessary.

"But I was told I can't get fevers," she protests.

"You look like you have a fever."

"Are you calling big sister a liar?" She is starting to look upset. I would need to dissuade her from acting accordingly, especially if she is as powerful as my initial assumption.

"No, I'm not saying you have a fever, I'm saying you look like you have a fever. If you look like you have a fever, it could be something else that is wrong."

She seems to quizzical, uncertain about what is going on.

"What could that be?"

"Who knows, if I can check your forehead, I should be able to figure out if it really is something problematic. That's how people check for fevers, correct?"

"Okay," she answered.

I place my hand on her forehead and cast the augmented surface thought detection spell as a memory reading spell.

...

This girl, her name is Flandre Scarlet, she is a type of youkai called a vampire. Displayed functions include...

Speed, significantly slower than a Tengu's flight speed, but significantly faster in terms of ground speed.

Strength cannot be pinpointed. Clearly stronger than anything I have come across in this mansion, weaker than an Oni.

...

Shapeshifting, creating zombies, wait-there's something wrong here... Odd, her memory is far fuzzier than Koakuma's was. Either that or a different type of protection from mind probing was put on her.

I'm going to have to check for more recent things...

...

It appears that the kidnapped Tengu were brought here for her entertainment, to keep her out of her sister's business. The problem was that she was becoming more and more restless of late, and her "toys" would keep breaking faster and faster. And so, to they decided to meet the challenge and kidnapped a group of powerful Tengu and hoped this would keep her preoccupied.

Three Tengu; one by one, they underestimated her.

Because she was a child, they figured that they could deal with her. While none of them expected that absurdly dangerous unique ability she has, the second and third Karasu should have taken into account that their comrade was killed and that this little girl was the only thing in the room. At the very least, they should have been suspicious.

Now this ability of hers...

...intriguing.

Everything she can see has an "eye" which rests in her hand. If she pokes this "eye" hard enough, the object is destroyed. Not entirely, but enough to ensure death in even extremely powerful youkai and deities.

If she can see it, she can destroy it. The problem is that no one else can see it, so unless they see a live demonstration, they can't believe it.

Such a terrifying ability, if I fought her, she'd only use that ability the moment she felt like she was in legitimate danger.

And I can't waste my time "playing" with her seeing that Aya needs immediate tending to her wounds.

I remove my hand from her head.

"Mister, am I sick?" she asks.

"No, you're not."

To do what is necessary, regardless of the belief of the people. I will not hate them for not being able to carry out that task for hating them would be a waste of my energy, but I will succeed where they have failed.

"Ah, Aya, you're up!" I shout, looking in the direction of Aya's dying body.

"Huh? Another-" This girl, the moment she turned her head away from me, she had sealed her fate.

My life force materializes in my hand and takes the solidified shape of a blade. My second hand grabs onto it, forcing it to retain form.

The target area is small, between the head and the shoulders.

I swing my sword!

...

The girl cannot finish her sentence as her head flies from the neck. With a sickening sound, it impacts the ground. The small body of the child, no longer with a head, slumps to the ground.

Before she could defend herself, before she could take any more lives, as dishonorable as it was, I decapitated her.

The sword made of my life force shattered immediately after the deed was done as I could no longer maintain it. After all, I had little practice maintaining it.

As for the girl, I feel no guilt for killing her. As a child, anything I could try to use to talk her out of killing me would bore her, and she would kill me with her power of destruction like she did with the second Tengu she killed. If I faced her honorably like the first one or face her as an innocent child like the third one, my chances of victory would not only go from astronomically high to astronomically low, but I would also be wasting the time needed to help Aya.

I did the logical thing, I did the right thing.

I turn and approach Aya, kneeling down and scooping her up into my arms, carrying her as I made my way towards the exit.

...

Carrying the Karasu in my arms was an easy feat, getting her to the exit of the building wasn't, given the fairies were flying everywhere through the mansion's halls.

But not an hour had passed when I reached the exit to the building. Opening the doors, I was greeted by the light of the setting sun and the appearance of the brick wall before me. It appeared to have been repaired since I had seen it, considering it is not in ruins right now.

...

There at the gate, is Meiling... or Hong... or Meiling Hong... or Hong Meiling, I'm not sure what her name is anymore. She is asleep in the chair I left her in.

Wait, there's a second person at the gate! It's... Minoriko Aki?

"Sasuke!" the harvest goddess exclaims, "I didn't think the event would be so important that a Tengu would show up."

"What event?" I ask. I didn't know an event of any sort was supposed to be held here. Nothing I picked up from Koakuma or heard from Ms. Knowledge indicated anything of the sort.

Oh wait, the business that Flandre Scarlet's sister was supposed to be attending to that wasn't to be disrupted. Are they connected?

"The youkai that owns this mansion apparently was inviting other youkai for some get together. I was invited for the purpose of providing a god's perspective of the situation they wanted to address. You didn't know?"

"No, I didn't."

I began to inform her of what happened when I was on my way to Youkai Mountain from the human village.

My encounter with a group of Karasu having been ambushed, pursuing the scent here; being attacked by the guard, rendered unconscious by the maid, and finding remains of the unfortunate Tengu as well as their killer who was given the Tengu by none other than what appeared to be the owner of the mansion.

I left out my misadventure in the library and the fact that the killer was a small child.

"After slaying the killer, I've escaped with Ms. Shameimaru, and here we are."

"I guess I won't be sharing this food I brought with any of them," she mused, gesturing the basket she was holding.

"Food?" Something just occurred to me, "Can you do me a favor?"

"What is it?"

I look to see that the red haired woman is standing outside the gate, looking outward. She doesn't seem to be paying attention to me and Minoriko so I turn back to the goddess.

"I need Aya to be taken back to Youkai Mountain, and the Tengu need to be informed about what just happened here. At the same time, I have been stripped of my sword and my satchel, then there is the fact that if this incident is not addressed at the root of the cause, it may repeat itself or escalate into something worse."

"I need to carry Aya back and deliver a message?" the goddess asked.

"No, you just need to deliver a message. The one who will be carrying you and Aya, since that method will be faster, will be my summoned beast. And if you don't mind feeding him, that should make it easier on you both."

"He can have the food I'm carrying, but still..." She looked uncertain about this.

"I promise to repay you."

"Okay."

A few seconds later, along with some arcane babble, my Air Boar stood before the harvest goddess. Presented with the grains, vegetables and fruits in the basket Minoriko was holding, the boar happily ate away. I informed it on its next job.

"Your next job is to carry the goddess and the Tengu woman to Youkai Mountain as fast as you can, understood?" The boar gave an affirmative oink in response.

"Thank you, both of you," I say before turning towards the mansion.

"Mr. Ito?"

Is there something I am forgetting?

"What is it?" I ask in response to her question.

"I knew them... the three Tengu who have been killed. This maybe selfish of me, but... they had families, all three of them." I suspect that the sort of insight she has is linked to her ability to gain faith from believers. "Please, make the ones that subjected them to their fate pay! I'm sure Aya would want the same."

The chances are that there is a possibility that it would come to that. However, the fact that I have been asked directly... if I say no, then I am obligated to not do it, and if I say yes then I am obligated to do it. Even if the reasons are different, the fact remains that people will only make their judgments about me. And worse, I do not have the time to explain to the goddess my desire to remain neutral. Alternatively, this could be what she desires for me to do to pay her back.

As a result, the best course of action is to tell her yes and them keep the promise.

"I will," I tell her as I walk towards the building's front door. I can hear the boar running off as the door closes behind me.

...

Humans.

At first glance, they're a type of endurance-based animal, structured to literally outlast any other animal. Combine this with their precision grips and their mental capacity giving them vast amounts of mental creativity, and the result is that they have the time and ability to construct tools that allow them to outclass other animals.

This is before taking into account the utilization of magic, divine powers, charms, and traditions. Ever since the appearance of the Hakurei and Yakumo barriers; for every human who struggles against a fairy, there is a human who can face an Oni.

As a result, the maid who rendered me unconscious could possibly be as powerful as that one child, I think her name was Hakurei Reimu, and have the skill and control of the Hakurei Miko.

That said, I will take good care not to underestimate her, ever.

...

The fairies are starting to get annoying. I have to take them out before they can sense me, before they can alert others to my presence. Worse, I have to make sure no one sees me, hears me, or sees their fellow maid getting smacked, sliced in two, vaporized, or anything else I am being force to resort to doing to make sure that they can't warn the Human Maid.

...

This is taking too long-wait... there she is, talking to another fairy. I hid behind the corner and listen in.

"The fight with the Hakurei Miko has left the meeting room significantly damaged. While everyone moves into another room, Mistress Scarlet wants you to fix up the damaged areas," the fairy said.

"Alright, I'll be there immediately after I finish this hallway, per the Mistress' orders," the human maid answered. The fairy is turning away from her, not looking in my direction-

-and neither is the maid!

I round the corner and fly at the Maid as fast as my body will allow me. The maid turns her head, but before she can do anything, my hand collides with her face.

"Wha-UUEH!" My pseudo strike, going for speed and not force, is not enough to break her neck, but the force is about to cause her to spin.

I grab her by the arm before she can fly, but I allow her to spin enough for me to grab her other arm. I have her by both arms, and in a matter of a second, I force both of her arms behind her back.

"Y-you're alive!?" she asked in pain. I adjust my hands so that one of them is holding her by both of her wrists, freeing my dominant hand.

"You survived the-?" Before she can finish that question, I strike her in the neck, the same way I did with Koakuma. Being a human, she probably received more damage to her neck than the devil woman did, but my actions served their purpose; immobilizing her without killing her. It's harder to memory-read an unconscious target, but it's impossible for me with my current knowledge and skill to read the memory of someone that is dead, undead or the standard form of dead.

I let the maid slump to the ground, look up and see the fairy maid who was talking to her not a few seconds ago.

"Meep!" the fairy screams, charging me with a sword and shield, but she is too slow.

"Reduced Black Lightning," I speak while pointing my finger at the fairy. She is rendered into the basic primal or nature energies that fairies are comprised of, thus being subjugated to having to regenerate from her otherwise dead state. By the time she's done, I will have finished everything I need to do.

I look back at the human maid.

She is laying on the ground, suffering defeat by my hand. However, if she is not injured enough to be rendered harmless, I can not waste time reading her memories.

To find out the weaknesses of her master and where she hid my stuff, I place my hand on her head and cast the spell I used on Flandre.

...

A human girl, adopted into the "Scarlet Devil Mansion" by the gardener, Hong Meiling. Huh, I can't seem to get anything before that...

She extended her lifespan somehow. Was it by using her power over time? Attempting to find out is unnecessary and time consuming, I also need to find out the weaknesses of this youkai called "vampires."

...

That's a lot of weaknesses.

Next, I need to find out where she left my stuff...

No, that's the kitchen, although that could be important to me later on.

...

Ah, there it is.

This is all I need to know. I pull out a small container that I was hiding on my body and begin pulling out thread.

"Wait, you had that on your person? Where?" she asks as I begin to wrap it around her.

I say nothing. I have no interest in letting an enemy know my secrets. Hiding thread on our bodies knowing all the great (and disturbing) uses is something we from the Ito family hold pride in.

Before I can wrap enough around her to be certain that she can't escape, I run out. However, if she's weak-willed, she may not realize that she could be strong enough to break free.

"What happened to the younger mistress?" she asks.

"I cut off her head and left."

"Is that all? I'm glad."

Glad? Does she mean that she is not upset that I killed her master? No, that's not it. She said 'is that all,' thus indicating that the vampire girl... would require more to defeat her? Wait... from her memories, I recall this girl stabbing a vampire in the chest and that still not killing it.

However, given the memories of this maid, I would have greater chance at defeating the master of the house since not only is she less powerful but also doesn't already know how to deal with me. I will not return and finish off the younger sister while her experience with me is fresh in her mind.

I leave the maid, bound, gagged and inside a closest.

Now it's time to address the real threat.**  
**

**Author's Note:**

Thank you, Kaiser dude, for proof reading this.

I have been informed that the Bad Endings are confusing. That said, I have decided to opt out the third bad ending I was planning. It was going to be long boring and stupid anyways so yeah.

My apologies to the Flandre lovers, but if you read that one book ZUN wrote, you'd know that vampires don't die that easily.

As for those wondering WHAT Sasuke's dream (after the flashbacks ending meant), what Iku was doing basically means that the dreamer is trying to become more/better connected to the part of their mind that person they are doing it with represents. Iku, in Sasuke's eyes, represents logic and good morals... or something along those lines, I dunno. He wants to be like her?


	18. Chapter 10

I rest my satchel's sturdy strap across my chest. Finally, it is back in my possession, along with all of the spell scrolls (albeit none of them have any real use right now). Along with my small pack, I also retrieve my long sword, thus arming myself with an additional means from my own abilities.

My would-be celebration is cut short when my stomach growls. However, finding food should not be a hardship for me.

If the human maid's memories are accurate then between where my stuff was stored and the place where the instigator of this incident is supposed to be, there is a place where they store their food. It is here where I will eat my dinner.

...

Several seconds of running through empty hallways lead me to my destination: the cellar. As a courtesy, I will refrain from taking any foods that look like they are from the outside world, as I have been informed that they are usually either cruelly expensive or unhealthy for anything to consume.

In contrast, anything that looks like it can be gotten for a low price and fairly easily here in Gensokyo, I will eat. Of course, I have to eat light given that I am on a mission, much to the complaint of my stomach which should be able to sate itself on what little stomach fat I have.

I sit on one of the chair like furniture structures, unless it's merely an odd type of chair, and lay some used paper across the elevated flat surface near me.

The ink in my pen has almost run out, so I need to make sure every stroke counts. Altering the spell on a spell scroll normally would be more time-consuming than rewriting, but since going all the way to Knowledge's library to try to bargain with the owner, who most certainly hates me right now, I will be saving time placing the pen to my scrolls here.

And so I sink my teeth into the cheap native food while my writing hand writes the editing I must perform.

Light-infused spells are not my specialty, but Patchouli Knowledge's material on Chinese elements depicted a Sun element that she was working on (there's also a Moon element, but it is neither important now nor as delved into by the librarian herself). Vampires hate the Sun because, according to Sakuya's memories, it burns at them thus canceling out their regenerative abilities. There may be some other issues Vampires have with the Sun as well. That said, I will be seeing if I can use it or not.

However, I myself am not effective while using actual element-based magic that isn't darkness-infused, thus making any spell I cast directly ineffective. That said, I have to resort to single-use pieces of paper containing the spells, similar to the spell scroll that I have "False Memory Charm" on. This is why I am editing the spell scrolls I have...except for the False Memory Charm, I'm keeping that.

In addition, I prep them for remote casting. This should allow me to cast them even if I am several dozen feet away. It will take a bigger toll on my magic reserves than usual, but it is something I need to prepare for.

I finish writing the Sun spells onto the pieces of paper, and I also finish eating. Placing the spell scrolls back into my satchel, I turn and exit the cellar room.

I am ready.

...

The room I enter is bursting with life. Those who are inside it are so noisy that even when I entered the room through the only means available aside from the windows, no one noticed.

The expansive size of the room requires its architecture to have pillars, although the artwork put into them is unnecessary, I hide behind one of this pillars and listen in on the conversation.

Like the rest of this mansion, this room is red. Deviance can be seen in the fact it has a giant table with many chairs. These chairs are all filled with various youkai. In fact, there are so many youkai that some of them were even standing. The far end of the room contains an elevated floor in which a gaudy chair sits, facing the crowd of youkai.

Can this be the event that the Harvest Goddess was talking about?

"The pathetic humans, the cruel gods, and stuck up mountain youkai! You have witnessed it all! We have regained our place in the world as nightmares to everyone who once deemed us weak!"

The spokesman youkai is a muscular individual, tall and broad shouldered. Although bald, his oddest feature is his single eye which is larger than what proportional eyes would be as if to make up for the lack of a second eye. He is wearing traditional clothing for men.

"Behold, the hated Hakurei Miko!" he lifts a human, one of the only two humans in the room, up by her long black hair. Although her clothing is worn and torn in many places, enough is remaining that I can tell that her clothing of choice was a red hakama, a matching top, white detached sleeves and a tight black leotard (they're called leotards, right? I don't remember since I've only one of them before).

... The skin tight clothing is really pronouncing her well shaped bo-

_Focus!_

I walk down the outside section of the room, taking out the Sun element spell scrolls and preparing to set them up.

"Defeated by our new lord and master, Remilia Scarlet!" the muscular youkai points at the youkai sitting in the gaudy chair. She is wearing a light-pink mob cap with a red ribbon with white stripes, a light-pink dress with a red bow on both sleeves, a large red ribbon behind her waist with white stripes and a necklace featuring something like Caduceus.

For me, I can only tell it is Flandre's sister from the red eyes, short light-blue hair, the large black bat-like wings on her back and her noticeably short size.

As I continue placing up Sun spells around the room, the crowd roars.

"SCARLET! SCARLET! SCARLET! SCARLET! SCARLET!"

"And our master has given us a new mission! Tonight, we will finish what we've started with the humans!" Finish what they started? How long was I out for?

By now, I have finished setting up the Sun spells. I turn and make my way back towards the entrance to the room.

Yes, I am expecting myself on fighting everyone in this room. Now to set up some other surprises-

"Look!" shouts one youkai who is shaped like a cube with arms and a very silly face, "The mountain youkai have come!"

So much for ambushing them. At least I finished setting up the traps, so it's not a total setback.

"Let's kill him!"

"Wait!" one of the youkai says as he steps forward, "Give me this chance to prove that one servant of Scarlet is more powerful than the servants of anyone else!"

This man... his facial features and his eyes look familiar, yet I cannot not place where I've seen him before. Black hair, with wolf ears and a fluffy tail that matched. His clothing looks like that of a typical Tengu man's, only without sleeves, thus baring his arms which are slightly more muscular than my own.

Wait, I know who that is! Aside from the differences in color, attire, muscle size in arms... this man is the spitting image of me.

"I, Ito of the Sasuke family," he starts "came from a world identical to this one... only the youkai never regained their willpower lost to order and peace brought to them forcefully. As a result, when that youkai of nightmarish power came to Gensokyo, not even from all youkai banding together could they defeat it as they had never had their bodies and will tempered! But as the sole survivor, I know the truth, the truth that the peace does not result in good! A Tengu of this soft world will not be able to defeat me as I have trained-HURK!"

The moment he closed his eyes and lifted his head, he was undone. His talking was put to an end when I drove my sword through his heart.

Even if he is stronger (which I find unlikely), there are possibilities that he is dumber, slower, and more fragile than me. Whatever the case, he made an illogical decision and I have made the logical one, and his gloating ended him as I have already struck him down.

Actually, given his attempt to move before I stabbed him, he probably figured out that I was going to try to kill him before he could finish, but clearly it was too late.

"That man is without pride!" the cube youkai yelled, pointing at me. This accusation may not be true; just because I have cast off my "Tengu pride," that does not mean that I have no pride inhibiting me. Of course, he's saying it like it's a bad thing.

I pull my sword out of my look-a-like's chest and swing the blade at his neck. He falls like how Flandre Scarlet fell when I dealt with her. But just to be certain...

Expending additional energy to skip somatic cost and chanting so that I am not caught in mid cast, I formulate arcane energy and cast a spell.

"Hell Fire - Fireball." Hot blackness launches from my hands and the body is lit on fire with flames enriched in darkness.

The next challenger steps up while gesturing to the other youkai to stay put, confident that he can defeat me.

I keep my distance and begin analyzing him. He seems to be an adolescent, I think the humans would call it "mid-teens" or "late-teens." Probably used to warmer climates given that he's also wearing a lot of black. His face appears to be... different from what the humans in the human village normally have and he's wearing a strange hat... is he an outsider?

"Step back! I, Gary, will handle him!" a human shouts as he leaps from where he was once sitting. "Don't interfere!"

Gary? Yeah, this guy is definitely an outsider. Probably someone from the continents to the far west. More importantly, why is a human even siding with a bunch of youkai? Why are they letting him side with them and not eating him?

He is drawing out a... firearm? It looks far more advanced than the ones the humans in the Human Village use either, maybe even more advanced than the weapon the Random Tengu Girl uses.

"Eat lead, bitch!" he shouts before opening fire.

I take the option to "show off," hopefully it will damage their morale. The timing is difficult, but there is no real danger since the barrel size indicates that the bullet is a smaller caliber than that Tengu woman's weapon on top of having less impact strength from the barrel being smaller. Not to mention that my attempt to check for magic indicates that the gun has little or no augmentation.

I quickly shift my body to the left and open my mouth. Given how slow it takes me to open and close my mouth, I have to begin closing my mouth before the bullet is halfway between me and the gun's barrel.

Tengu speed and strength, my teeth stop the bullet by smashing into it from opposite sides. I have caught the bullet between my teeth.

I spit out the mangled piece of metal that was once the bullet. It must be made of a lower quality material than the sword Hieda had given me.

"... Huh?" the human boy asks in shock.

"Is that all?" I ask, displaying confidence.

"That's bullshit! Complete and utter bullshit!" Angry response due to drop in confidence, my faked emotion worked in triggering a reaction that will hamper his efficiency. His anger is weakening his rational thought; he repeatedly fires off his weapon until he is pulling the trigger without triggering its attacking sequence.

Attacking a youkai with a weapon that is neither made of their weakness nor augmented with magical or divine power is comparable to attacking a trained and armed swordsman with a wooden stick. You can defeat them, yes, but it's usually stupid to attempt it.

Only one bullet lands, I am successful in dodging the rest. The one bullet that hit me is ineffective in doing any real harm as my body ejects it out of the bullet wound during the healing process.

I charge the human. One punch to the head should end-

Claws!

I stop short so that I don't impale myself on the spider-like claws protruding from the human. Where did those claws come from? The human lifts his hand, glowing with arcane energy. He's casting a spell!

"Hex type: Canine Killer!"

I narrowly dodge the green beam of light was fired at me at point blank range.

Wait, did he just use Inugami-style Black Magic? The beast youkai, regardless of their origin, usually guard their species' secrets jealously. So how is a human using that kind of magic?

"Thanks Inugami, Jorōgumo," he says to seemingly no one.

Odd, an Jorōgumo is a female spider youkai with shapeshifting powers, and the Inugami is a type of dog-originated Beast Youkai that uses black magic. Are there two youkai willing helping this human?

Regardless, the Inugami's best means of defeating me is via magic. So what happens when we take that magic away?

I begin to formulate the spell that saved me when I fought Ms. Knowledge, sacrificing another pinch of iron from my steel sword.

"Hex type: Poison field!" The purple sphere that contains poisons capable of killing youkai begins to form around the human.

"Anti magic field." But my invisible field makes the parts of his field that are within a certain distance of me invisible and inert.

The magic from his field does not affect me. I close in and swing my sword. The spider claws extend from his body into full spider legs and parry my attack. In my free hand, my life force scimitar materializes. I swing it through the spider legs whose claws were holding my steel sword by the blade.

"AAAAAA!" the human shouts in pain from the loss of his limbs as my life force scimitar dissipates. He's open, I stab him in chest.

I am being shoved, I pull my sword out since I am still gripping it. I flip in the air and land on my feet. Logical explanation: he has inherited the physical strength of a youkai as well. If that is so, I can conclude that none of the youkai he has "serving" him since his wounds are not healing any faster than that of an animal's.

"You'll pay for that!" his head is flying forward while his body is still in the same spot. His neck is elongating to make this possible. The common trait of a Rokurokubi, a youkai that is nigh impossible to tell between from a human aside from that one feature. Either this human is being helped by a Rokurokubi or the human itself is really a Rokurokubi.

A totally open target.

I spin to gain momentum, raising my heel. I thrust my foot out right after the head reaches half way into my length's reach. My timing allows more impact force to be created than if his face and my foot simply met.

My aim is dead on. The force from my foot into the human's head causes it to fly at it's body. The impact from the head is strong enough to force the body to also fly into the table, smashing it to pieces.

The human's body falls limp, and I am already gathering wind around my arms.

"You idiots!" shouts the cube youkai, "He's more powerful than the Hakurei Miko, we can't beat him without fighting him together!"

Three of them charge at me at once; a black nekomata leaping high into the air with her flight path targeting my head, a youkai that looks like the spokesman youkai only green and bigger charging me from one side, and a bipedal skeleton with wreathed in odd color flames charging me from the other.

The cat is clearly faster than the other two, so I bend backwards and let her fly over me. I jump from this position, making a back flip, causing the fist of the green monster to miss me and slam into the skeleton. This shatters the skeleton and causes whatever flames are covering its body to start burning the green youkai.

"WAAAAAGH!" the green one yells in pain as falls to the ground. The cat lands on her feet and starts preparing a spell.

However, I am already finished gathering together enough wind to make a solid strike. Firing off the wind in her direction, she is blasted off her feet and into the wall, her spell interrupt and herself temporarily incapacitated.

"Enough!"

That came from-

The vampire girl is uncrossing her legs, her hand no longer under her chin. All of the youkai in the room watched her as she placed her hands on the arm rests of her throne-like chair.

She begins to stand. I immediately start begin the remote casting.

"It appears that I will have to-"

_"Silent + Remote activation - Sun: Noble Flare!"_

Her sentence never finishes. Sun spells placed in several sections in the crowded areas of the room as well as close to her throne that I could get away with putting them begin to activate, exploding with enough heat and light that it is like that of the Sun's.

That half of the room is filling with explosions, and anyone who looks into the light also becomes blind, even if only temporarily. I, on the other hand, look in the opposite direction as they go off.

"AAH! THE PAIN!"

"It burns! IT BURNS!"

"Fire, FIRE!"

"My EYES!"

"I do believe I'm on fire."

"I'M BLIND!"

As the light dies down, I open my eyes and see that the vast majority of the youkai who had been remaining have been incapacitated.

"Daidarabotchi!" one of injured youkai yells, "Kill him!"

The wall to right side of the entrance to the room broke open as a giant beast's paw, so large that a single claw is larger than myself, pushed through. I immediately dodge to the side as it thrusts passed me. The paw then swings to slam into the side of the wall where the main entrance is, forcing me to duck and roll under it. The room's walls, ceiling and floor crack from the impact, the shock-wave of the impact blowing away the smaller youkai and the fairy maids who are still in the room.

The giant youkai swings its paw in the opposite direction, trying to hit me with the back of its hand.

I immediately draw my sword and swing at the lowest toe, cutting it clean off, claw and all.

"OUAAAAAARRRRGH!" The bleeding mess that was the giant youkai's paw retracted from the room. Looking through the hole, I could see the outside of the mansion. This would indicate that whatever was attacking was too big to fit in the mansion.

The hole is suddenly being filled with the image of a giant wolf's head, a beast youkai whose fangs teeth were the size of my body. Although it's head cannot enter the room due to the hole being too small, it can still look inside and stare in hate at me for inflicting harm on it. Opening its mouth, it snarled and barked at me.

Only for the inside of its mouth to be blasted by concentrated Wind.

"Hellfire - Quintuple Fireball"

I begin showering the monster with flames, causing it to howl in pain and retract as quickly as it can. I hear the sound of something flying at me at high speed coming from behind me.

I spin only to receive a hard punch to my face. My chest is receives injury from several sharp blade like claws cutting into it.

Staggering back, I quickly lift my sword.

He has giant purple bat wings, purple eyes, blond hair. He is wearing a white shirt underneath a blue vest, both completely unbuttoned so that they can expose chest and abdominal muscles like he's trying to play to the sexual desires of either a heterosexual female or a homosexual male.

"To think I would get the chance to have a rematch with you, Sasuke Ito! I'll make you suffer for the time you humiliated me!"

... When was that? I don't remember anything like that happening!

"It was back then, years ago at the Hakurei Shri-"

For a moment there, I was hopeful that I could take him out while he was talking. But unlike "Ito Sasuke," the Devil narrowly dodged my stab.

"Coward!" he yells while raising his hand and firing a white laser at me, which I dodge. I may be a coward, but that's hardly the issue seeing that I am merely trying to make intelligent decisions in this fight.

I bring my sword down on his head, but he blocks with large icicle. Although his arm is struggling against my two arms, he has another another icicle in his other hand which he thrusts forward, stabbing me in the stomach, a wound I ignore.

"Hellfire - Fire Wall"

The devil leaps back to avoid being burned by my magic. However, he seems to be gathering energy to-

UUUAGH!

An explosion? Something like that is all I register as I am being knocked back so hard that I fly out the hole made by the giant youkai.

...

Vision... blurry, wait, my vision is coming back. I'm outside the mansion, inside the wall... next to the tree.

"Is that all, Ito? What's the matter?" The devil asks as he walks towards me. My arm which is already up grabs the branch of the tree as it falls-

"Is the little wolf-AUGH!"

-and stabbing the held branch into the devil's face. The devil recoils in pain, grasping at its eye, if its eye is still there. I turn and leap to my sword, grabbing it while flying. I spin and land on my feet in time to swing my sword, deflecting several light orbs that the Devil shot at me.

"You filthy mutt!" he shouts before disappearing in a swirl of sparkles.

Sadly, despite all the demand and glorification about honor and glory, the point is to win; and that is done by making it unfair to your side's advantage. A fight of skill? Of course the more skilled is going to win. How do you think humans who lacked access to divine powers and skills in magic fought off the youkai who have plagued them since before history existed? By challenging Oni to physical fights? Challenging Tengu to races? No, they used "underhanded" methods because they believed that some things were better than concepts like "honor."

And I know for a fact that you're going to teleport behind me.

"AARGH!" the Devil screams when I spin and slice his stomach. I follow up with a kick that he's too slow or too in pain to block, sending him through the brick wall.

Perhaps I should apologize to Meiling; I doubt I'll be able to get in bed with her if I keep breaking her wall down... if it's hers.

He's injured and open. I'll use this moment to land a finishing blow-

A loud snarl warns me about the giant wolf beast, giving me enough reaction time to leap out of the way of its snapping maw-

Or not. It snaps its maw down on me. The physical pain indicates to me that the lower half of my body is in its mouth. It's initial attempt to tear me in two has failed, but it shaking me may make my pain threshold not last after being impaled on its teeth.

However, I am at point blank range.

"Dark Water - Flood," I say while weaving the arcane energies and aiming them into the wolf's mouth through my legs.

The wolf's mouth suddenly bulged as it was being filled with water, water that was probably doing more than just over filling its insides with liquid.

The wolf roared in pain, releasing me.

"Black Lighting!" I aim the darkness enriched lighting magic at the monster's open mouth. A loud whine erupts from the wolf, indicating that it is in excruciating pain as the black electricity courses through its enormous body. Shortly afterward, the giant monster falls to the ground and remaining motionless. I can tell that I have defeated a giant youkai.

"You will not win, Tengu scum!" I turn to see the Devil hovering several gross meters in the air, charging for an attack. Actually, it appears he has already gathered a considerable amount of strength into it. He probably used the wolf youkai as a decoy to buy himself charging time.

It is even more evident on the amount of power he has gathered as the explosion that erupts from him is even bigger than the attack he used to expel me from the building earlier.

As the energy erupts, lasers and orbs of light both are expelled from his body.

...

Those are a lot of lasers and light balls.

No, "a lot" doesn't even begin to describe it. I stopped being able to count them some time after the number of lasers and orbs hit the thousand point... but grouping them, I can tell the number of shots he is firing at me is well into the millions.

The sky is being filled with them! He intends to make sure that I can't use my speed to escape! And they're too close together for someone of my large body to simply dodge between them!

As a result, dodging is entirely impossible! I should not have let my guard down because of the lesser youkai who were fighting me. I should have taken into account that this man is a Devil, a creature as powerful as Oni and Tengu!

I have mere seconds; if I don't figure out what to do to defend myself, this might kill me!

Wait, earlier I deflected a light orb with my sword. Life force scimitar in my left hand, augmented steel long sword in my right hand; If I strike at the orbs and lasers than maybe I can "block" them!

The first light orb is upon me! I swing my freshly materialized life force scimitar down on it, deflecting it away. An orb is flying at my right side, I swing my long sword horizontally, dissipating it.

An orb comes down, baring on my left. I strike it, dissipating it as well. In a second, I deflect or dissipate five orbs, but the they keep coming!

Repeat.

An orb grazes my leg, burning it. My leg heals while I ignore it to deflect and dissipate more orbs.

A laser blasts through my right arm, forcing me to drop my steel sword. My arm repairs but instead of picking up my sword, I materialize a second scimitar since I cannot risk moving from my stance.

_"Materializing two at a time actually makes it easier"_

Another laser flies at me. I shift to the side, making the blow I take to my body far less from fatal. The hit is hindering my movement thought, allowing more orbs to strike me.

By now I've stopped counting the number of orbs I've deflected and dissipated.

Too many shots are getting through, striking me! I fall to the ground and black out from the pain.

...

I open my eyes to see that I am still alive. I must have blanked out for only a few seconds. It's over, the barrage has finished. Dust and smoke clears. My body is healing from the wounds, albeit not as fast as I want.

The devil is charging for another attack.

"Now... DIE!" he shouts as he fills the sky with another barrage of lasers and orbs.

Am I finished?

"Evil-Sealing Circle!" shouts a feminine voice.

It didn't look like a circle, more like an expanding square. However, the attack felt like a circle. The smiting in all of its divine power. The power and knowledge passed down through the family known as the Hakurei, this was its extent. Every single laser, every single pellet, gone. Reduced to nothing. A human rendering the power of a devil to absolutely nothing.

Struggling to stand, I turn to look at the Hakurei Miko. She is breathing deeply, probably out of exhaustion.

"Honorable Tengu, I implore you-" before she can finish, I cut her off, answering her question that has yet to be answered.

"I will end this incident," I tell her. My body is making a recovery. If given enough time, I can even take on another attack like before.

"Are you certain? Are you not worried about becoming deified because of this?" she asks.

A lot of youkai have a pride not to become gods from human faith, but since I have decided to cast aside my pride, I care not about something so trivial. If I risk being worshiped for this, I will deal with that later on.

"I made a promise to a friend and to myself. Making a promise to you that is the exactly the same is merely rectification and clarification of that promise."

"I thank you, for my gohei has been destroyed and I no longer have any tailsmans on my person."

"Whatever your reasons for wanting this incident resolved, cook me some bamboo shoots sometime and we'll call it even if it bothers you so much."

The Hakurei Miko seems to be satisfied with my response, why I do not care to worry about. She spins and takes to the air, exiting the battlefield as well as the incident.

"UAAAAGH!" the devil shouts, finishing his own physical recovering from the Miko's attack. "I'll kill you for that, dog!"

The devil flies at me, but its speed is not good enough. Even with my injuries, I am able to act faster than him; I shift to the side, dodging his tackle. After he passes me far enough, my hand grabs him by the closer wing.

"AAGH!" he shouts from hyper-extension in his wing. Although my weight does not stop him, my holding him by the wing gives me leverage. Bringing him down into the ground is easy.

I grab his opposite wing with my other hand and plant my foot between his shoulder blades. He is unable to fight back as I drive him into the ground. I pull his wings back while thrusting my foot forward.

A sickening sound can be heard, and the youkai is now wingless.

"UAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH H!" he screams in pain. I toss the two wings to the sides as I stomp on his arm to immobilize him. I materialize my life force scimitar in my hand one last time and stab it into the back of his head.

...he stops moving.

I step off him, I have won.

...

Now I remember. This man is the devil I fought, well not really, back... I forgot when it was. I think he was trying to seduce one of the Hakurei women. When she realized his motives and resisted him, he tried forcing himself on her. For some reason she was cut off from the power of the shrine's god. I didn't do anything myself... but when I entered the room, she somehow used me to power herself.

Yeah, I still don't understand what happened that night even to this very day.

...

Clapping. Clapping?

"As important as my pawns are, you put on a grand show for me, wolf youkai," says a little girl's voice.

I turn and see her, the one who started this whole incident; Remilia Scarlet. She appears completely unharmed, even her clothing looks new... no, her clothing actually looks better than what she was wearing when I first entered. A new pair of clothing of identical design just waiting to be put on the moment something happened to the previous pair?

"But you are foolish to challenge me... for I hold more power in a single word from my tongue than the entire mansion. More power than all the youkai who have become my servants ever since coming to this world!"

And with a calm, nearly silent voice, she whispers it.

_"Xgsf"_

It was not a word I ever heard. But I could tell many things about it just by hearing it. For one, the fact she could say it so clearly was probably a feat in itself. I could also tell that it was a word that few creatures capable of speech would be able to pronounce. In fact, the sound itself was something that I think would drive any intelligent animal insane just by trying to wrap its head around it. As for what the spoken word could do...

Before me stood a vast army of monsters.

If I had not taken a bowel movement before the fight, I would have taken one here on the spot.

**Author's Note:**

Thank you Kaiser Dude for proof reading. Thank you Wolfsbane706 for "Noble flare."

The rokurokubi (human-like youkai with neck being able to become super long), Inugami (dog youkai with black magic powers), and Jorōgumo (Female Spider Shapeshifting youkai) are all canon to Japanese mythology and they are all types of youkai.

The Devil male is a genderswapped Elis.

The one eyed spokesman youkai and the cube youkai are canon characters. They can be seen in Symposium of Post-mysticism.

Somehow, I feel that Sasuke is starting to become... Evil. Or at least starting to look evil. I can justify what he's doing all I want, but... damn, I feel like I'm being brutal with this.

And now Sasuke get's hot and bothered by the Hakurei Miko (appearance based on the M.U.G.E.N. character of the same name) ...yeah, I'll stop there.


	19. Chapter 11

An army of creatures is standing before me. They are not element-bound beings like what Ms. Knowledge made back during my fight with her, thus any element-based weakness they may have is unknown to me. Their appearances are all sinister to some degree, but they are not exactly the same as each other. A meter tall to ten meters tall; human shaped, beast shaped, insect shaped, plant shaped; they were a diverse group numbering in the thousands.

If I am to make a comparison, I feel that their presences feel like the Oni. However, there are many things different about them.

Oni are a breed of youkai. These things clearly are not youkai, at least not as much of youkai as other youkai, they feel more like the gods. Gods who feel similar to Oni, yet their own power isn't as impressive. Except for that giant, eight legged monster near the front. It feels like it is almost as powerful as an a normal Oni...

Of course, with my sorcery abilities drained, I think I would rather fight an army of fairies.

Remilia Scarlet cackles. She summoned this army to fight me? Isn't this girl supposed to be my equal in terms of overall power?

"To think, decades ago I could barely summon a single lesser demon. Even with my cherished friend's modifications and enhancement charms, even with practicing summoning demons for years or keep myself from dying of boredom, and even when the night's moon is full there should not be this many."

Her smile fades to an angry frown.

"Yes, I think this concludes your theory, Patchy; I do summon more demons from being angry, from hating my enemy for trying to forge the Sun within the my stronghold!"

"Be torn apart by my army!" shouts Remilia Scarlet before flying and back. The giant eight legged monster charges forward underneath her.

It looks like a distorted and grotesque version of the spider from Hell that I fought, but it is not the same creature.

I lift my arm as it gathers wind to spiral around it. Launching from my hand, the concentrated wind flies forward and collides with its target.

"GUAAUGHGAGAH!" The spider is still running at me. I continue firing concentrated blasts of wind at it. Each shot makes it wince in pain as the they collide with its face, but the giant demon spider is not slowing down.

The Spider is merely a few meters from me; I leap upwards to ensure that it will not hit me.

It passes under me, I have an open shot that small section (well, big on the big spider) between the carapace and the abdomen. One concentrated wind bl-

Something strikes me hard, causing me to fire off a shot at the monster's abdomen. Even while flying, I can see the attacker as some sort of hybrid animal. A white, furry beast-like creature with claws of an insect.

I materialize my scimitar and block its claw from striking me head on. I force its arm and claw to the side, opening its defenses so that I can strike it. I twist my body and throw a kick-

Something hits me in the side of my body. I hear the bones of my lower spine break from the impact, and I hit the ground.

While rolling, I can feel that my body is paralyzed from the hips down. The giant spider demon is charging me again, as well as the other demons who are now convinced that they can kill me.

I slam my arms into the ground, stopping my body from rolling and using them to spring myself into the air.

Letting myself be surrounded will not help me win or survive. Using a blast of wind, I elevate myself higher into the air and blast forward using a second one.

A lighting bolt shoots past me, as do many smaller blasts of energy and a beam of light. They're trying to shoot me down.

But if I can bring my speed up to faster than the speed of sound-

"AAAGH!" my voice lets out as an extremely hot beam blasts by, vaporizing parts of my leg and arm.

I hear a loud, explosive sound as something hits me in the back. With my mind half preoccupied with the sudden loss of limbs, I feel my back cracking from the strike.

I'm falling, falling towards the ground...

...

My body is against grass. Cool grass. I open my eyes to see it is still night time. And I can see them... that army that's making its way to me.

...

How? How am I supposed to win here?

That Spider demon is clearly stronger than the others, but even without that monster on their side... they would equate to an army of average youkai numbering in the thousands.

A thousand youkai (equivalency) against a single Tengu. How the hell am I supposed to beat those odds!?

...

Wait, I can remove my limiter.

I've been fighting for the past fifty years with it, right? By now my body should be producing at least 90% more of my initial amount, in addition to what I have been producing directly as a result of practicing with magic.

First, I remove this seal that's drains me of my magic and life power. Light is glowing where the magic circle I constructed currently lays. I poke it in the center then trace the symbol in the circle with my finger. The circle spins and dissipates, releasing me from the grip that was robbing me of my magical energy and life force.

...

It's slight, but I can feel it. Without the restraints, my body is 'clear.' I feel less restricted and more energetic. And should I get the chance to gauge myself after making a full recovery, I should show signs of tremendous improvement in terms of magic capacity.

But for now, what I have gained is insufficient and thus will not save me from this army.

I need more power and I have nothing left.

...

No, I still have something... something that may give me the power I need to defeat them.

Every day, when my body was robbed of magical energy and life force, I stored that power into a seal I created to ensure that the lost power would not go to waste. Power that I theorized would make me more powerful than any of the other Tengu should I use it.

It's unlikely that it will make this battle become wholly in my favor; it has been 50 years, hasn't it? 50 years of storing my magical energy and life force. If I break the binds of that seal in which I am storing both my displaced magical and life energy and have it returned to me, I may have the power needed to destroy the entirety of Remilia's demon army.

Yes, I cannot falter here. I'll do it.

I breath deeply and calm my mind.

...

Back when I cursed my own weakness, when I met Yuuka, when I met Iku... the after fifty years of waiting, I will finally let loose the fruits of the labor inspired by them...

...

"Unseal store reserves and reverse flow, Verbal Pass-code:"

I think the words as I speak them.

_"Life of the Tengu"_

The dust being blown away from me indicates that something has exited me, something released after fifty years of cultivation. The air pressure around me increases which is fitting given that I am a Tengu.

Inside me, I can feel power flowing into my body. Pure, raw power, and I feel myself becoming stronger.

I take a step towards the advancing army. I feel that I can destroy them a-

...

Odd, I feel like some sort of weighted object on my body. Neither water nor mud, but like a thick liquid. I look down and see a gel-like substance on my body, and it is growing.

...

What?

What is this?

What is this thick, transparent liquid oozing from my body? What is this stuff that is covering me? Why is it so hot-AH!

Why is it burning my flesh?! No! It's covering my whole body!

It feels like a huge number of fleas are biting at my skin and flesh, like they're eating me alive, all while the hot water is being poured on me endlessly!

Ah!

AAH!

AAAAAAAAAGH! IT BURNS!

IT BURNS!

Oh GODS! MAKE IT STOP!

MY EYES! MY EYES ARE GONE, YET I'M STILL BEING BLINDED! MY EYES HAVE BEEN BURNED FROM EXISTENCE BUT I CAN STILL SEE THAT BLINDING LIGHT! HOW IS THAT POSSIBLE!?

MY MOUTH, IT'S EATING OFF MY MOUTH!

My throat is being clogged and crushed! I CAN'T BREATH!

IT BURNS! IT BURNS! IT BURNS! IT BURNS! IT BURNS! IT BURNS! IT BURNS! IT BURNS!

IT BUUUUUUUURNS!

Someone make it stop! I DON'T WANT TO GO THROUGH THIS ANY MORE!

Even as I collapse to the ground, the pain is that same intense burning!

Is this for trying to become stronger!? IS this for trying to go beyond what I have been given!? Please! Someone end it!

...

The haze from the heat, the liquid's obstruction, they make the form before me blurry. But I can see something! I can see it! It's standing above me! A demon! A demon with an axe! Yes, yes, if it kills me, it can end my pain!

Yes, please! End my misery! Plea-

No! WHY ARE YOU BURNING!? WHY ARE YOU TURNING TO ASH?! DON'T GO! COME BACK! END MY PAIN! PLEEEEASE!

PLEASE! SOMEONE MAKE IT STOP!

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAH!

My insides, are they moving? My arm and leg feels strange, on top of in pain. Wait, that arm and leg was burned away, what is it doing ba-?

M-My body, what the hell is happening to it!? WHAT IS THAT THING!? IS THAT MY ARM!? Wha-WHAT THE FUCK!? WHY AM I GROWING EYES THERE!? WHY AM I GROWING A THIRD ARM!?

WHY IS MY BODY STILL BURNING WORSE NOW!?

BTHTTHTHTTH! BTHTHRH! UUUUGHAGAHA!

...

Darkness, darkness and a lack of burning pain. I might have blacked out.

...

I open my eyes, I am kneeling on the ground. My flesh, which has been burned away, is being regenerated and repaired ridiculously quickly. My body appears normal, like how a Tengu of my life style and age should have; no extra arms or eyes in wrong places. I can breath clearly.

I am alive.

The burning pain is gone but... I feel... it. It's like no magical power I've ever felt before... nothing I have felt in my entire life has even come close. It's not just bigger or stronger. In fact, it could be debated that it's too dense and heavy to even be called magical power; it feels like I'm standing at the bottom of the lake... only many times heavier.

Is this the magical power I've stored after 50 years? Is this my power? This is who I am?

...

I am unable to sense whose magic it is, I can only tell that it is huge as well as dense and rich with raw power. Much like smells, you cannot smell yourself after years of being used to yourself. As a result, the only way to smell yourself is if the smell is so huge you cannot subconsciously ignore it. Even then, you cannot tell whose smell it is.

Not to mention that I can feel this power coming from within me, and I can connect with it like it is my own personal reserve.

Conclusion; this is indisputably my power.

I try controlling the massive power welling up inside me.

I try casting a spe-

Holes open in my arm, and it becomes crushed as if two Oni slammed their fists into it from opposing sides. The sudden pain causes me to lose focus, and the spell fails to be cast.

This isn't working.

It's like trying to lift a super heavy boulder.

Wait, if I try casting a different type of spe-AAAAAAAGH! IT BURNS!

It appears that using that sort of spell causes the magic to eat away at my flesh like the highly corrosive substance the Kappa had to deal with when they came across discarded machinery from the outside world.

...

My hand manages to make a full recovery in spite being burned, punctured and crushed.

However, that doesn't take care of my main problem.

After all that, if I can't control this power, then what was the point of this power boost!? Perhaps I should use my life force to-

No, wait. That's precisely why I'm NOT being killed by my own magical power, it's because my life force is keeping it at bay until it bleeds off enough so that I can use it without somehow killing myself! By fueling and augmenting my natural healing mechanism, my life force is repairing the damage being done to my body from the massive amounts of magic. That said, if I try using my life force, I will only be in the pain I was in before I blacked out.

"Udgjsegs!" Whatever that was, it didn't come from me.

Unintelligible noises? No, speech! The enemy army still stands, and they see that I am... weaker? The charred marks on the ground must have been those who got too close before the magic in my body was weak enough for them to approach me. Regardless, they're starting to charge me right now.

I don't know what demon is weak against what. That said, I am stuck relying on everything I know.

_Sacrifice energy to: cast multiple spells simultaneously, maximize strength, skip incantations, skip hand movements, skip charge times._

I grip at this excessive magical energy I wield, and ignore the burning pain. I begin weaving four offensive spells._  
_

_"Left hand; Black Lighting - Chain, Dark Water. Right hand; Blast, Hell Fire - Fireball, Black Earth - Magic Stone!"_

Lightning bolts, bursts of water, flames and rocks; all dark as night and flying at my enemies.

I fire all four spells off at the same time. The arcane blasts strike several demons. Then I repeat, firing the spells off at the same time again.

Every time I repeat, I make the next cast faster.

I don't bother to count; I am firing off these spells several times a second.

Five demons drop, ten demons drop; the burning sensation stops.

A hundred demons drop, two hundred demons drop; the burning sensation returns.

They keep closing in, I keep firing.

Dust is being kicked up. Smoke from the magic is formulating everywhere.

How many times have I cast the spells? I've lost count.

...

I halt the repeating process when I feel that I no longer have magical energy to use.

The demon army is gone. I have defeated every single one of them.

But my body... it burns. It looks fine, but it feels like it burns. I also am having cramps.

Did I just go through a magical burnout?

Magical Burnout is that condition in which magic users can't use magic for a period of time because they used too much magic in a too short of time. Yes, the symptoms are that of magical burnout, and none like I've ever felt before.

The excessive magical power I wielded is gone, so besides what I couldn't prevent from bleeding off, none of it was wasted.

Wait, there's something towering over me in the smoke!

A giant demon; not as big as the giant wolf youkai and the giant spider demon, but it is wielding a 2 handed hammer whose head is bigger than my body.

"ROOOAAAR!" It swings its hammer down, and I leap back before it can impact me.

The hammer lets out a powerful shock wave, but I am undeterred and leap onto it as it is being lifted up. The giant is looking at where I was and not where I am, not noticing that I am on its weapon, gathering the strongest wind I possibly can. I release it, blasting it forward while aiming for the center of monster's head in line with its eye. The blast pierces through its head, but the monster cannot retract as it is already dead.

I leap off the hammer as the giant body comes crashing into the ground.

My eyes scan the area for more demons, I see nothing but the charred area of the island and the mansion in the distance. My ears listen for the sounds of movement or breathing, but I hear nothing but the wind blowing. My nose takes in the air to smell for anything that reeks, but there is nothing but the burnt smell. I try to feel for any sort of presence, but all I feel is the air and ground being saturated with magical energy.

I have defeated Remilia's army of demons.

My nose picks up something approaching... the scent of Flandre? I turn and see a familiar blue haired girl in a pink dress approaching.

Remilia Scarlet.

"Bravo, wolf man! You have defeated my servants, my followers and my army! But I will let you know now that your fight is futile!" she says loudly.

Besides her using up energy to summon that army of demons, she should be at her peak. On the other hand, I am only suffering from magical burn out. If I let her waste time gloating, I can formulate a plan.

"It was all for nothing. The moment you made it apparent that you would be my enemy, your fate was sealed. For I control fate!"

I recall the blond haired vampire and the human maid's memories mentioning something along those lines. However, from Flandre's perspective, it appeared to be a fabrication of falsehood. Sakuya, however, sees it as a powerful force to be reckoned with.

A disproved hypothesis against an established theory. Of course, theories do not become facts until they have stood the enduring test of time. However, it is safer to assume that the enemy is using not lying. The question is to what degree can she manipulate fate?

"Your fate has been dictated, _dog_! Under this night's full moon, today is the day you _die_!"

* * *

**Author's Note:**

Thanks to Demon Neko Shen and Kaiser Dude for proof reading.

I actually went ahead and looked up some stuff. Akyuu was born in 1994, which means that if I want Sasuke to have met her in chapter 3, this whole thing would have to take place later than that. So when I have some time, I'm going to go back and see if I can change things to NOT be in conflict with each other.

Wait, if Akyuu is older than Reimu, that means Reimu would have to have been born after 1994, meaning that she was less than ten years old during the events of Embodiment of Scarlet Devil.

Or is she? If Phantasmagoria of Flower View is spring of 2005, this would make Akyuu 11! And Zun said that all of the games would take place while the heroines (probably referring to the humans)are in their mid teens.

...

What the-?

Timeline issues aside, I am excited because I might actually finish a fanfic for once instead of starting it and never finishing it. I'm so excited I can't write anymore for the time being! *laughs*


	20. Finish the Promise

"Just like how you killed all of those poor youkai who came to me for deliverance. Just like those demons you slaughtered, you will die here on this island today!"

And the beast calls the animal furry.

She launches a glowing pink blade at me which I easily dodge to the side of. Its attached to a chain? Noise behind me indicates that the chain is coming back at me from the opposite side; an attack that chases? I stab back quickly and let the chain pass in front of me.

She's firing another chained blade at me. I can't dodge left, right, forward backward or down; this leaves me with up.

Blasting myself into the air, I can hear that the second chain is making no pursuit of me. The first chain, however, is making a third return.

I thrust forward in the air, causing the blade to miss me. Remilia is firing off a third chained blade at an angle from her self while her second chain dissipates.

The chained blade that was shot off at an angle curves in the air to aim itself to strike me while the first makes its return curve.

I materialize my two scimitars and strike both chained blades, deflecting them. The chains are beginning to explode!

The speed of the explosion rate plus its unpredictability keeps me from putting distance between myself and the blades.

As I flip in the air and land on my feet, Remilia fires three chains simultaneously; two at opposing angles, diagonally up, to her sides and forward. The third chain is fired straight at me.

Taking into consideration the curve rate and the speed of her chains, the middle chain is aiming for my center to make me move, the left chain is aiming for my head and the right chain aiming for where my head should be.

But she's clearly underestimating my threshold for pain as well as my speed.

I leap forward and over the center chain, slightly to the right, and under the path of the other two. My hands, free since I dematerialized my scimitar, grab onto the center chain. Landing on the center chain's right, I can brace myself against the ground using the already taught chain.

And I pull quick and hard. The vampire's eyes are wide in shock as she is flying at me, having made the chains explode too late.

I quickly lift my foot and kick out, just under her guarded area. She makes a pained exhale as she topples to the ground.

I rematerialize my scimitars and slash downward. She materializes something transparent and swings her hands upward.

My swords are knocked back by the first swing, the second swing comes almost simultaneously and cuts at my legs, the third swing my stomach.

I stagger backwards as Remilia gets onto her feet.

My stomach is healing, but she rushes me with her transparent claws. I parry the strike from her hand with my scimitar.

"Given that you read Sakuya's mind, you should know that my power over fate is absolute. Yet you're going to fight me with everything you have?"

How does she know that I read know that I read the maid's mind? Did she meet with her while I was fighting the lesser youkai? Was it during my fight with the demon army? I would take mind reading into consideration, but if Remilia could read minds, then she should have seen all my attacks.

"Because I can still win."

I answer her so that she'll start a conversation, allowing me to heal. I give the vaguest answer I can so that it will be harder for her to figure out my actions.

"What, do you think you're some chosen one who is designated by nonexistent powers to deny fate itself?" she asks.

Chosen? No, I wasn't chosen. That's why I need to resolve this incident.

If I am destined to die today, then I have to defeat her. Not because I'm the only one who can do it, no, in fact, if I fail then someone will just replace me, defeat the vampire, and take the credit.

But I have potentially wrecked Gensokyo's environment given the amount of magical saturation in the air and ground. Even if I was able to recover from mutating into that... thing... what of the plants, animals and other youkai? Even if I ignore the fact that people will curse my name, the Yama will probably damn me to Hell for eternity for killing a bunch of people and nothing to show for it. With that in mind, I have to at least make amends before I die.

I'm not stopping her for the sake of others, I'm doing it for myself.

"I'll send you to your gods!" she shouts, drawing back her hand and forming a spear. She throws the spear and it splits into six spears as it leaves her hand, each spear equal in the size of the original spear she held in her hand.

I dodge to the side, keeping myself from taking a blow to my body, but my arm is cut into. Nothing I can't-

OW! Why is my arm hurting so much!? It feels like someone took a huge knife and stabbed me in the arm with it! My cramp from the magical burnout, is it still acting up?!

"It seems something is wrong with that arm of yours. What's wrong, can't keep up?" Remilia asks with an arrogant smirk. She can see that my arm is causing me pain.

"Given that you had to send an army of youkai and an army of demons to weaken me, something like this isn't enough to stop me," I answer.

Feigning confidence has a psychological effect on my enemy.

"Only because you're honorableness scum!" she answers back.

"Excuse me?" I ask, faking surprise. Even if I know what she means, I have yet to receive clarification that what I am thinking is true. Also, stalling for time while giving myself a chance to look for openings is good.

"You're a powerful youkai, yet you're willing to stoop to such low levels to accomplish your task."

"And follow a person's faulty and idiotic code of honor?" I ask.

"To see true honor as something to be cast aside for the sake of your mission; what are you, some kind of Ninja?" she asks.

...

She said it, not me.

The name I was given at birth, although it has no real meaning that any intelligent being has records of, might as well mean "Ninja Warrior." Although I am not an actual ninja, I do know some Ninjutsu. Not to mention that my philosophy to forget "Tengu pride" for the sake of efficiency is much like how the human ninja saw the samurai code as something pathetic and wasteful.

Of course, I will not delve into the irony of her statement. I will retort.

"Did you not need to rely on trickery to capture the four who you fed to your sister?" I ask, "Did you not jump them and take them by surprise? I seem to recall someone mentioning that you resorted to cheap tactics to make sure they couldn't fight back."

No one mentioned it, I saw them do it through Sakuya's memories. The two of them were pressed for time and decided to ambush the Tengu since an actual fight would take too long.

My words are having the desired effect, making my enemy get worked up and unfocused.

"All so that you wouldn't have to deal with your bothersome, little sister while you orchestrated an army to take over Gensokyo with."

I hit enough nerves with my words. She is now furious and flying at me with her full speed.

"Die, you bastard!" she screamed.

This was like fighting Captain Inubashiri all over again. I dodge to the side and swing downward, slicing off her arm. But she was flying, not thrusting, thus she kept going before I could turn my blade.

My sword shatters from her body impacting it from the flat side.

She spins and swings her hand, accompanied by those pink transparent claws. My arm flies off as I leap back too late.

I ignore the pain as my healing function kicks in. Remilia's body does the same.

Examining her, I can see that her body is healing a little bit (but noticeably) faster than mine. A terrifying thought if she's going to grow.

She leaps into the air and flies at me at full speed again, coming down from a shallow angle. I leap over her and swing my sword downward while spinning.

"ARGH!" she yelps in pain as my blade cuts through her wings. I finish the spin and land on the ground, pivoting and turning to face the vampire.

"My wings! You cut off my wing, you bastard!" she shouts as she scrambles to her feet.

I do not listen to her pained words as I gather wind and blast it at her head, blasting it to pieces-no blood or organs? Flandre had blood, but Remila's bleeding bats? No, she's transforming into a swarm of bats!

They begin to circle me and fly at me.

I spin to slash the closest one-

One cuts into my body from behind me. I spin to slice a bat at a second bat, but two others are cutting into my sides.

I do not let myself stop, I keep swinging my scimitar, cutting the bats one by one and ignoring the cuts across my body they are inflicting.

The number of bats I cut apart increases by a small margin, the number of strikes they land on me increases by a large amount.

I keep spinning and slashing, soon my eyes can only see bats.

"ARGH!" I have vacuum of the wind shoot outward from myself, blasting the bats away. With the bats out of the way, my body begins healing its wounds. The bats are turning into mist and gathering together, revealing Remilia.

She's gathering magical energy into her body. To counter her, I start gathering wind towards myself.

She fires off a magical laser beam that tears through the ground; I leap to the side and fire off a blast of wind.

Remilia's wing, now regenerated, folds over her body and blocks the blast wind.

"RAARGH!" she shouts as she swipes her vampiric claws at me. My shifting allows me to avoid being hit, my sword slashes across her arm. Having followed through with our respective attacks, I am behind her at an angle. I shift to my original position, stabbing Remilia through the back.

"AAAH!" I pull my sword out as crudely as possible to inflict more injury, pull up my foot and thrust it into Remila's side, causing her to fall onto the ground.

Now to end this fight before she can-

An explosion of energy booms from Remilia's fallen body, a golden energy envelops her, throwing her off the ground and onto her feet... did her hair turn blonde? She looks like her sister, only wearing the pink dress instead of Flandre's red dress.

"You're not bad for a nerd, perhaps you should have spent more time socializing?" she says.

"And perhaps you should have spent more time in the pit." Huh, I didn't say that with any intention. I said it out of emotional reaction, I'll ponder on why later.

"Why bother training and studying if you're already the most powerful person you know?"

I can tell that her power boost is making her stronger than before, but taking into everything I know about her abilities from her sister's and maid's memories, I can take heart that her overall combat efficiency is not that much (if at all) higher than my own. So long as I make intelligent decisions, I can still win.

The wind braces my arm, she flies at me with speed greater than before.

Her claw extends, my hand extends. My thumb to the side, two sets of two fingers closed together, aimed for her eyes. Her claws never reach me as my arms are longer and the palm of my hand smashes her nose.

My bones crack under the impact, but they do not break as the wind braces them. Remilia stumbles in pain.

"My eyes! MY EYES!" she screams in pain, clearly ignoring her broken and bloodied nose, "You gouged out my eyes, you bastard!"

Suddenly, I am stabbed through the back and out my chest by a glowing blade. I am stunned by the unexpected pain as Remilia gloats.

"Think you're so tough?" I hear Remilia asking from behind me. She shoves me off her blade, causing me to stagger forward. I turn and see, three Remilias?

Three girls who look identical to the vampire... and the vampire herself. When did she pull off this? And the smell, they're all the same person!

Wait, the ground is glowing, we're standing on a giant magic circle. Now that I think about it, there was one in the basement when I met Flandre. Well... it wasn't an active magic circle but it was an engraving with the same symbols. A magic circle engraved into the floor that wasn't going to be used. Does that mean that Remilia is using the same form of magic Flandre uses to make multiples of herself? If it's using the magic circle...

"So dog, if you become my eternal servant and kill all my enemies, I'll change your fate and spare your life," the Remilia in the center says in a haughty way.

While I probably can't fight all three of them at the same time, the magic circle on the ground seems to be the source of her being in four bodies.

Without a word, I leap into the air and fly over the Remilia who is in pain and make the strongest blast of wind I can, propelling me to the edge of the island. A convenient thing about this island is that you can actually see the Forest of Magic from the part behind the mansion. This lets me know that I do not have to travel as far from the island's shore to the forest's banks than if I were in front of the mansion.

I see all four Remilias are giving chase, but I am still faster!

Reaching the lake's edge, I spin and fire a wind blast at the four Remilias who retaliate with their own magical powers. I do not bother with details as the explosion's cloud is thick enough that I cannot see through it. I use the cover provided and fly into the trees.

In the Forest of Magic, I turn and land in the darkness. All four Remilia pass me by, stopping and looking around to see that I am no longer in their sights.

Hmm? This tree is really big, possibly a thousand years old.

"I do not intend on hurting you. So I ask that you bare with this," I tell the tree, which is probably unaware of what I am doing.

I grip the tree with both arms as best as I can and lift.

Lift.

Lift!

LIFT!

"AUGH!" I exhale in pain from exerting my muscles. But the force pays off, I tear the tree from the ground.

Lifting it above my head, I turn and see Remilia in a clearing several dozen meters away from me.

Perfect, she doesn't seem to have heard me lifting this tree.

I try not to make another noise as I throw the tree with all my strength aside from breathing. It flies through the air as Remilia turns her head the other way, only to look in its direction too late.

With a rumble, the tree lands on my target, causing the nearby trees to shake and the animals to flee in panic.

... It's not over, I can see that as the thousand year old tree is being moved by something underneath it.

I can see her under it; my enemy is lifting the tree with but a single hand. And her hair is glowing red this time.

"I believe this is yours," she says with a smile before throwing it back at me.

I do not sit still and fly forward, making the attempt to hit me with the giant tree useless.

I materialize my scimitar in my hands and swing-

Before I can complete the swing, my arm is stopped as something impacts it.

She caught my arm! I can't pull back, she's holding me by the arm! She drives a claw into my chest, then slashes across my face with her other hand after letting go of my arm. Her claw pulling out of my chest begins glowing.

I am hit at close range by a strong magical attack, and the force throws me back. I shoot out with my wind in hopes to strike her from a distance, but she easily ducks under the visual distortion while flying.

Wait, where did she go?

I feel several sharp things stab into my back. When did she-!?

Something hot hits me hard in the back, throwing me forward.

I slam into a tree. But before I can push off of it and retaliate, I feel something slam into me, sending me through the tree.

My body flips in the air from the force, I regain my composure and halt my flight. I turn and face the red-haired Remilia who is firing off several bat shaped energy missiles. Although she's firing upwards, they are all curving in their flight towards me!

I create a powerful and thin wind, moving horizontally across the bat missiles. They explode as I eradicate them.

Remilia charges me, I leap out of her way and blast her with wind.

Showing the action of her being blasted by wind.

She's flying out of control! I grab a small tree and pull it out of the ground before flying after her.

She regains her composure and halts her flight, only to be hit across the face as I swing the tree I uprooted. This sends her flying again, smashing through other trees of the forest.

As she flies uncontrollably, I throw the tree I hit her with at where I know she will be. Remilia regains her composure and drops elevation, dodging the flying tree.

She flies at me, firing her bat missiles. I dodge over the first, to the left of the second, and under the third. I'm now close enough to strike her, but I have no time. While manifesting my scimitar, I throw my fist upwards and into Remilia's open center. My swords finish materializing, I swing upwards with my second arm, striking Remilia in the shoulder.

The force knocks her back, I fly forward and try to slash her again. She swings her claws, parrying my attack. She attempts to counter with her claws, I quickly parry her attack.

She's noticeably stronger than me, but I get one open strike in before she overpowers me. I slash down into her shoulder, forcing her to drop to the ground. She lands hard but lands on her feet.

I dive at her, and swing my swords. She manages to curve under my blades' paths. She slams into my stomach, I am flying back from the force. I catch myself and prepare for her next attack.

She's throwing a kick while a meter away?

An explosion occurs as the energy released from her foot hits me. I hit the ground. I shove myself off the ground and to the side, evading her foot which was aimed for my head but is now smashing into the ground.

She is about to open fire, but I slam my foot into her head, sending her flying. Her feet touch the ground, and she skids to a stop.

She reaches her arms out and begins gathering power towards her hands. Two large orbs appear, one on each side of her, and begin firing red lasers at me.

My leg is struck by one, but I manage to dodge the rest.

She begins forming another set of orbs, I begin controlling the wind in reaction. I have the wind slash across the orbs before they can fire, and they explode point with Remilia between them.

I have the wind create a vacuum between myself and her, and have the pressure on the other side of her increase while being directed at me, causing Remila's flailing body to fly off the ground and into my freshly rematerialized scimitar.

With Remilia's body impaled on my first scimitar, I lift the second and swing downward, aiming to slice her head in half. In the fraction of a second, she speaks two words.

"Scarlet Devil"

Energy suddenly erupts from her body, blasting me back before I can land a possible killing blow. I stagger back as I land on my feet, looking at the fountain of magical power in front of me.

It dissipates to reveal... Remilia Scarlet? Her body is glowing, I can feel power welling up inside her. She's... taller? It's like she's aged one and a half centuries. Although she is no longer a child in form, she is still young, like a woman fresh into adulthood. And healthy, incredibly so given her figure and the size of her-

...

Yeah, I'm really going to need to catch up on alone time when this is over.

"To think this world can offer me a worthy opponent! I applaud you, dog man! I ask, what is your name?"

I say nothing. Although, if she wanted a fight, she could have simply attacked the Tengu guardsman. If she didn't attack on a full moon, she clearly would be weak enough to be challenged.

"Huh, so you won't even tell me your name? How sad, I could at make your fate to die of a painless death if I knew your name. But it seems that you will simply throw yourself at fate itself. No matter."

She spread her arms out, bent at the elbows and palms facing upward. She starts glowing

"You can take it, right? This is a once in a life time opportunity for me to cut loose completely!"

I begin to hover off the ground and then increase the elevation, she does the same.

"I will give you a taste of the true power I have from the moon!" she says as she flies at me with speed she never utilized before.

She's already on me! I rematerialize my scimitar too late to have the first strike. Remilia slashes my arm with her claw, I swing the sword in my other hand.

We continue to parry and counter each other. But this time, Remilia's attacks were more painful to block and she did not have any openings. I suddenly feel her hand slam down into my shoulder, sending me crashing into the ground.

As much pain as I am in, I scramble to my feet and look up to see her swooping down and flying at me.

She's flying at me, I muster up as much strength within me and push out with the strongest blast of wind I can muster. The trees begin to uproot.

She breaks through with little to no trouble, I feel her bladed fingers dig into my face as I feel my head being hit with something that has the strength of an Oni, breaking the bone in my face. The force causes my face to tear free from her fingers.

I feel my body flip in the air as I fly from the force of impact.

My perception of time speeds up, thus everything is moving in slow motion.

She's there, standing upside right, raising her palm to my face. Power welling up in her palm.

Pain in my face plus being blinded by light, I feel my body hit another tree.

"You're more tenacious than a cockroach. What makes you so durable?"

I don't answer her, instead I summon as much power from the wind as I can. Every last bit of my strength. I can feel my body straining to perform this task.

"Hmm? A new trick? I'll crush it then crush you!"

The wind picks up around us and starts circling. If she's not going to try to stop me, I'll hit her with everything I have. The wind increases in speed as it circles. The magic in the air reacts to it, causing lighting to jump across.

This twisting wind would be strong enough to destroy the human village if powerful people weren't protecting it. This can be seen given that the trees are being tore from the ground and flying up the vertical column made of wind.

I will 'push' the powerful, circling wind tower at Remilia. I will kill the vampire with this! Choke on this, Scarlet Devil!

... Nothing happens, the spiral of wind is still there, but it's not moving in the direction I am 'pushing' it in.

What could-? OH NO!

My 'grip' on the wind is slipping. I cannot do anything! It is like when you've lost the strength to pick up an object because you're too exhausted! I can't manipulate the tornado!

"Done, dog? Then die!" Remilia flies at me, but I will not let myself die so easily! I use what little of my wind strength to fly upward and escape the pursuing vampire.

That tree above me that's breaking apart, its looks familiar.

That tree above me that's breaking apart, its smooth branches and tiny white flower petals look familiar. Isn't that the type of tree the humans used to ward off Oni?

Wait, that's a Holly Tree! One of the trees that have been caught up in the wind I made is a Holly Tree!

If Flandre's memories are accurate, Vampires cannot approach the branch of a Holly Tree, just like the Oni only you don't need a Sardine head to be impaled on it! So what happens if I grab it, fashion it into a weapon and then strike Remilia with it?

Catching one of the branches, I immediately pull it apart until only the main body and a pointed end remains.

Remilia is already catching up, but it matters not to me as I am done running. I stop flying upward and let myself fall at her.

She's surprised, and I drive the holly branch through her heart.

"EEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!" she screams.

A flash of crimson light, and there is no longer the Remilia Scarlet who nearly killed me, but the child who I nearly killed. Remilia reverted back to her state before the two of us were fighting.

No longer able to muster the wind, I cannot fly. With her wings mangled from the power of the holly branch, she cannot fly. With our respective abilities to fly lost, we both begin falling down the eye of the raging storm.

"No one has ever defeated my power! No one has ever escaped the fates I've dictated!" she begins to yell, "I will not be denied!"

She immediately began creating another spear in her hands, even as she fell.

"Divine Spear of Gungnir!" she shouts. The spear in her hand begins to take a different shape from the ones prior.

Wait a minute, Sakuya had seen this weapon before! It's a weapon that homes in on its target while moving so fast that even her time manipulation ability has difficulty keeping up with it! And its penetration power is unlike anything I have come across! I have to stop her now!

I close my body so that I am creating less resistance against the air below me, allowing me to fall faster. I materialize my own scimitar as I close in on her.

She's open at the neck; if I slice her head off before she throws the spear, I can end this fight!

Kill or be killed.

I swing my scimitar!

My blades strike and sever the small target's head clean off, but the spear is already flying.

Red, blinding light fills my vision as I feel a sharp, hot blade stabbing through my head like the strongest sword cutting through the weakest wood. Even though it was an instant, it felt like an eternity.

...

Darkness.

...

And that was the end of the life of the Tengu.

* * *

Proofread by Kaiser Dude.


	21. Epilogue

"Sasuke?"

...

"Sasuke?"

...

"SASUKE!"

I jolt out of my daze at the loud voice and look in the direction of the man in front of me.

"Yes! Yes, what is it!?" I ask.

"It's your move!" the man points down at the board in front of me. The game is called Dai-Shogi, a game that apparently all Tengu love to play.

"Sorry, I... uh... um..." My eyes look scan the board in front of me. If I move my _ryuo_ here, I pin his _osho_ down. He'll have to move his osho thus sacrificing his _hon'o_. I look to the older man and wait for him to make his move. And he can't take any of my pieces endangering his _osho_ because I simply have too many present.

...

Essentially, its a game about planning and strategy. Two sides are given an equal number of pieces, each type of piece is allowed to move certain ways. The goal of the game is to 'defeat' your opponent's _osho_, which is nearly defenseless in spite of the fact it can move any nine directions due to the fact that it can only move one space at a time. However, every turn you're only allowed to move one piece unless you meet the special requirements.

"How the..." He doesn't finish the sentence. He then shouts out, "How the hell did you do that!?"

Did I make a mistake somewhere? I immediately bow my head and apologize.

"I'm sorry! I'm sorry!"

To my surprise, the man isn't that angry.

"No... no, it's fine... but seriously, you're certain you don't remember playing this game before? You just kicked my ass!"

Did I? I take another look at the board and see... oh yes, he can't make a move where I don't defeat him. I had forgotten about my _fuhyo_ which I placed near his _osho's _escape route. I really did win the game. As for his question, I simply shake my head 'no.'

"Alright, that means that, by some abnormal means, you still know some things. Well, to elaborate about that condition... I can't figure out anything other than that your brain received massive damage from something."

Oh yes, "my condition." I am, according to the man in front of me, Lieutenant Sasuke Ito of the Tengu Mountain Defense Corps. A guardsman, former assault team member, and occasional errand boy.

I say "according to" because I have little memory of what has happened in my life up until yesterday. And I certainly have no memory of being any of those things.

But like the doctor said, the part of me that held my memories was completely destroyed. While my head did make a full recovery, the section that holds those memories had to be replaced by my body regenerating a new segment. Therefore, any memories I had stored in that old part are gone forever.

Miraculously, I seem to remember some basics such as my education from my past; magic, sword-fighting techniques, training methods, machinery working, wind control, special dates, languages, locations, species, cultures, important individuals, torture methods, psychology... but I don't remember people in particular aside from information everyone would know.

"Another thing," he continues, "Your body seems to have suffered severe magical burnout. If you want to be able to use magic again, you're going to have to not use it for... a decade at least, maybe longer. Otherwise, you might severely injure yourself... permanently. Any magic you use will be severely distorted and weakened, on top of simply hurting yourself more," the old Tengu standing before me says.

Permanent injuries to youkai who relied on their regenerative abilities are always a bad thing. The concept is like robbing an Oni of its super-strength, the one thing they are most known for.

"Anything else I need to know?" I ask.

"I need to check to see if you have a sac formed by the lining of the peritoneum coming through a hole or weak area in your fascia."

What scares me is the fact that I understand everything he says, yet don't remember friends or family...

"Isn't the fascia the strong layer of the abdominal wall that surrounds the muscle? Aren't the chances of something like that low?" I ask, "Tengu shouldn't even have those things."

It was something from a book that came from the outside world. The information was based on human bodies, not Tengu bodies.

"Tenma's orders were that I test for it with all my patients," he answers, "I'm not about to give you special treatment. Besides, it's not like you cared before, right?"

I was silent. Was I really like that?

Remembering that my memory was... well, gone, he immediately responded. "Oh, wait... Right... Sorry."

I find his apology unnecessary, but I pay it no mind.

"No matter how many times I've see it, I still can't understand how you can walk straight," he says. I redress the lower half of my body once the test is done. "Nothing out of the ordinary... just more fried magic output points," the doctor says, "Perhaps it was because of that giant flux of power that you generated? How did you do that, anyways? Anything in your mind that could point to it?"

"Can you elaborate?" I ask, "What was it that I generated?"

"Only one of the biggest, densest magical fields to ever appear in Gensokyo since after the creation of the Hakurei Barrier!"

So basically I was stepping into the realm of elite youkai?

"Of course, now that so many people know you exist, and can speculate that you are strong, they might seek you out; not a good thing given that your body has to recover from the magical burn," says the doctor. "I hear that even the plant Youkai came by to see you in person. She even knew your name!"

A plant youkai; I do know of a record indicating that a female plant youkai was among the most powerful beings in our world, if not the most powerful true youkai of all. The idea of someone like that seeking me out is terrifying.

"So, shall we inform your family and friends?" the old man asks.

"No," I answer. "I rather my lack of memory be avoided. I don't want people acting differently because they know I'm not the person they knew."

"Less work for me," the doctor says as he puts the Dai-Shogi board and pieces away. "But how long do you think you can keep that facade up?"

I don't know. I honestly do not know if I can live a lie, or a half truth, or simply keep the truth hidden under obscurity.

But I feel that I need to try.

I hear foot steps. Someone is approaching the room from the outside.

The door swings open, revealing a woman. Like me, she has white hair, with matching tail and ears, both of which are like that of a wolf's. Her physiology is that of what one could expect a healthy woman to have, save her bust size which is noticeably bigger, even if in acceptable deviation. She is wearing a white, long-sleeved shirt, and a large black skirt with red flame like designs reaching up from the bottom of the skirt.

I do not recognize this woman.

"Sasuke! When I heard you were conscious, I came straight here the moment my shift was ov-" she freezes while looking at me. Not at my face or into my eyes. But at the center of my body.

"Is something wrong, Momiji?" the doctor asks.

"No, it's just... I-It's just that I've known Sasuke all these years, and not once have I seen his abs like this... or any man's for that matter!"

"He hasn't eaten ever since he went unconscious, so it's no surprise that he's lost some fat," the doctor comments.

That may explain why I feel the symptoms of hunger.

"Your muscles... can I touch them?" Momiji asks.

"Uh... go ahead," I answer. I don't have a reason to care, do I? Although functionally, I don't see why she would want to touch my stomach.

She begins moving her hands across my stomach... why do I feel weird?

"Ms. Inubashiri, as much as any frustrations you may have should be dealt with, please don't do anything in this building. I'm trying to run a medical clinic here," says the doctor as he starts looking through the medical herbs he has.

"Huh? Eh!?" Momiji's hands retract as she turns to look at the doctor. She starts blushing heavily and looks back at me. She looks down and stutters before turning and leaving the room in a hurry.

Like nothing just happened, the doctor turns from his work and talks to me.

"Well, you do look like you've lost... 10 kilograms? Anyways, besides your body suffering magical burnout and that condition you don't want me talking about, you're good to go back to your old life."

"Thank you, sir," I give him a bow before grabbing the replacement shirt one of my family members supposedly left while I was unconscious.

...

Although I know its layout, this feels like the first time I have seen the city owned by the Tengu. There are many people here, all of them mountain youkai.

"Did you hear? The eldest child of the Himekaidou family's leg took more than a full day to heal!" I overhear one woman gossiping to another.

"Really, maybe she should have gotten it checked? They say that faulty regeneration is a sign of poisons and disease," the second woman responded.

"But since she was confined to her bed, she had all the time to practice her Spirit Photography!"

"No way! Her parents must be so proud!"

I have already passed them, but one of them notices me.

"There he is! The man that resolved the Vampire Incident!" she says to another. I do not know how to deal with attention, so I'm just going to simply continue walking.

"Isn't that Sasuke from the Ito family? A yarn maker?" I hear a man ask in disapproval.

"Quiet, you fool! He'll kill you with his mind if you anger him!" another man hushes him.

I feel the need to walk faster.

A woman lands a few meters ahead of me; she has red eyes and semi-long black hair. She is wearing a white blouse, a short black skirt, and a Tokin hat. She is also carrying a journal of some sort. While it is her scent that indicates that she is a Tengu; her black, feathered wings are what serve as a good indication of her nature as one of the Karasu.

"Hail, resolver of the Vampire Incident! This is your friendly neighborhood reporter, Shameimaru!"

"What can I do for you, Ms. Shameimaru?" I ask.

"Hey, no need to be so formal with me, Sasuke. You can just call me Aya." Huh, it's odd being called by my name. It doesn't feel like my name. "I'm here because I was hoping to get an interview with you; if you'd recall, I was out most of incident." She was involved? I wonder what happened.

If I recall correctly, Aya Shameimaru is an example of a Tengu who does not age as quickly as other Tengu. This can be seen in that she's apparently over a thousand years old but doesn't look older than several hundred.

"Sorry, I'd rather not try recalling the details," I answer.

"Ah, don't be like that!"

"If it makes you feel better, I don't plan on talking about it to anyone else."

"Why so secretive?"

"If I answered, it wouldn't be a secret."

"Fine, fine," she says with a chuckle and a sigh.

"If that's all, I need to return home."

"Actually, you're the one who saved me, right? According to the Harvest Goddess, I'm still alive thanks to you."

"What of it?"

"I need to formally thank you. Are you free tonight?"

"I should be."

"Would you like to have dinner at my house tonight?"

"If you'd have me, and assuming nothing major comes up."

"Great! It's the house on the corner right there," she said, pointing at a house that was... on the corner of where a bunch of other houses made an angle.

"I see it," I inform her.

"See you then!" she says before she spin, leaps and blasts off.

...

It's not long after my meeting with Aya that I come to a building that is supposed to look familiar.

The building in front of me is roughly the same size as the other buildings in the area. I think this is the Ito household because it has a sign that says "Home of Sasuke Ito." Unless it's some kind of prank?

Of course, I know nothing of the inside.

I enter and am spotted of one individual who does not have the traits of a Hakurou. A Yamabushi Tengu?

"Brother-in-law!"

Another Tengu peaks from around a corner, this one has typical traits of a Hakurou Tengu.

"Big brother, welcome home!"

These people, they're my family. None of them are faces I recognize, but they appear happy to see me. They also do not seem to be hiding emotions either.

"I'm home," I say softly.

They are happy, they rejoice, but there is no celebration. I don't know if that is normal or weird. But I am thankful as it does not ruin my plans or force me into any awkward moments where I have to tell everyone that I am not the man they know.

"You've gotten four marriage interview requests!" the man I have determined to be my father says, holding up several elaborate notes. The woman who I have determined to be my mother takes notice of one and speaks out.

"You have a marriage interview request from Lord Tenma!?"

"Brother has a marriage interview request from Lord Tenma!?" comes from the Tengu that called me brother earlier.

"Lord Tenma is a gay man!?"

"Lord Tenma is a woman!?"

"What's surprising is that someone in our family has gotten the attention of the highest Tengu of our society."

"Hey, Sasuke's the Alpha Hakurou! The fact the Tenma seems to want his babies shouldn't be surprising!"

I did not predict that I would have the title of Alpha.

"Alpha Hakurou?" I ask quietly to myself. My sibling looks at me quizzically. Was I supposed to already know about this? Did I make a mistake!?

"Oh yeah, you were gone that morning so you wouldn't know;" I relax my tense muscles as my sibling speaks, indicating that I was not dealing with something I needed to know, "You were selected to be deemed Youkai Mountain's greatest Hakurou Tengu. But given that you killed the previous Alpha, I knew it was only a matter of time."

I am not given a chance to elaborate as another member of my family changes the subject back to marriages.

"You'll elevate yourself, Sasuke! If you marry the Tenma, you'll achieve the dream of every Tengu alive!"

"Yeah, and the other Dai Tengu can suck it!"

"Hey, maybe they'll let you have your own harem! You've always fantasized about the long-lived Karasu woman, the Inubashiri family's head and that Oarfish woman, right? Maybe they'll let you have all three?"

Harem? No, I'm not going to have a harem. Given what I remember of the female Tengu psyche, having multiple wives will probably bring about jealously that will result in backstabbing, people dying, and emotional trauma that will never be healed.

But that list of women, what relationship did I have with the women mentioned?

My family members continued talking as if I wasn't there.

"Nononono, he wanted to sleep with the Autumn Goddess."

"Which one?"

"Ugh, you men need to actually think with your brains!"

"Is that so?"

...

I ask that I be allowed to return to my room as I have things to think over. As I leave, I begin looking through the messages I have received.

Wait, this one is different, it's not a marriage interview request. It's a simple note from... The council of Dai Tengu?

I open the letter.

_"To Sasuke of the Ito family. It has come to our knowledge that__ you used a means of transforming yourself into a youkai of extraordinary power. Although it has proven to be only a temporary alteration, it has come to our knowledge that such high concentrations of raw magic have negative effects on the environment.__  
_

_This can be seen in the negative effects you've had on the plant and animal life in the vicinity of the Forest of Magic, as well as causing fairies to become stronger, aggressive, and hostile.  
_

_On top of all of this, your creation of a magic storm has caused much damage to the area it was created in, and many humans and youkai are trying to harvest the magical power you've left behind.__  
_

_For those reasons, we the Dai Tengu have decided that you are forbidden from using that transformation until you have proven that you can control it."  
_

Fine by me, I can't use magic for several years anyways._  
_

_"You are to be commended for resolving the Vampire Incident, however, and a ceremony will be arranged in your honor._

_Signed - The council of Dai Tengu."_

I close the letter.

...

It took me a while, but without raising suspicion and without help, I manage to find my room. Perhaps I really am the Alpha Hakurou!

... Yeah, that was a bad joke.

Alpha... this title is given to whichever member of a specific subspecies of Tengu who has the traits most desired for that sub species. Of course, such prestige has its problems.

But I don't care about that right now. What I care about is looking through my stuff to figure out who I exactly was before I lost my memories. Judging from my journal; I seem to have been obsessed with physical, magical, and mental conditioning, as well as machines and researching sorcery. The past self's ambitions seem to be to achieve power.

So my past self was a power hungry, anti-social man? I can live with that... I think...

But something still bothers me...

_"And so, the final entry to this journal will not be a message to you, but a message to myself: Do no trust the Tenma."_

Why would I write a note to myself saying "_Do no trust the Tenma_," and then not say anything about it later on? If the Tenma became trustworthy, or the reason why she is untrustworthy became known, wouldn't I have written it down somewhere? And why is the Tenma untrustworthy to begin with? Is it connected to why she has sent me a request to have a marriage interview?

...

Regardless, I still have things to do before the day is over. I did promise Aya that I would visit her.

Before I leave, I find two extras of a magical energy draining system and apply them to my body. After all, I won't be using magic for a decade. After ten years, I suspect that I'll have undergone a substantial increase in raw magical production. I'm not going to bother doing the math on how much.

Looking through my wardrobe, I find that all of my casual clothing sets are the same outside of color. Extremely simple clothing, otherwise normal for a male Hakurou Tengu.

But if this is as good as I appear normally, Aya should know that this is what she should expect from me. I dress myself and leave for Aya's house.

...

I would comment on the interior of Aya's house, but I have more interest in the food she has prepared for me. And even if I wasn't currently scarfing down everything she handed me, Aya herself is... aesthetically pleasing. So if my rumbling stomach is quiet, Aya's... healthiness would be the center of my attention.

"So, what has happened while I was out of it?" I ask her.

"The exceptionally random Tengu girl, she found a new boyfriend. Remember that incredibly insane archer who hunted down the Evil Spirit and the Shadow Youkai with you, the previous Alpha and the Hakurei?"

No, I don't.

"He's her boyfriend? Sounds like a match made in heaven," I play on either sounding serious or sarcastic. I am basically saying that it is either a really good pairing or a really bad pairing. Shameimaru seems to accept my answer.

"I know, right? They practically deserve each other!" Aya laughs.

"Any major events?"

Aya smiles in response.

"Even while bedridden, I still was able to write a halfway decent newspaper article. And after getting out of bed, I was able to perfect it!" Aya says proudly, "In fact..."

Aya puts her bowl and chop sticks down, stands up, and walks to a small table in the corner of the room in which a newspaper rests. She picks it up, walks over to me, and hands it to me.

"Why don't you read it while I go get you seconds?" she asks as she leaves the room.

I look down at the newspaper and begin to read.

_...  
_

_Minoriko Aki's testimony:  
_

_"I had been approached by some of the forest youkai who asked that I appear at a get together at a mansion on the island in the middle of the Misty Lake. The reason was that I was to give a god's point of view on everything that was going on as the assembly was to plan revolutionizing Gensokyo. I accepted and decided to see if I could try to expand on faith by bringing some of the harvested food I blessed when I visited the Mansion."  
_

_"When I did, I was greeted by the gate guard. After being given the go-ahead to enter, I immediately ran into Sasuke Ito, the older brother of a Tengu who worships me. He was surprised by my appearance and expressed that he did not know of the assembly scheduled at the mansion, so I informed him."  
_

_"Sasuke told me that he was on his way home from an errand he was running for the Tenma when he discovered a group of injured Karasu Tengu. Being informed that several Tengu from their murder, I think he said 'murder,' where kidnapped, he then followed the scent trail to the lake, then to the island where the mansion was. He tried to enter the mansion, was stopped by the gate guard and defeated her in a physical fight. Afterwards, he entered the mansion, was attacked by a devil and a youkai magician. After defeating them, he was then attacked by several maids, the last one which injured him and left him somewhere underground. Underground, he met up with a devil or devil-like youkai called a vampire, as well as the corpses of several Karasu Tengu who __were all apparently killed_ by said vampire. He also found [Aya] and [she] was in critical condition. After defeating the vampire, he grabbed [Aya], fled the mansion, and then ran into me."

_"Sasuke then asked me to bring [Aya] back to youkai mountain and tell the other guards what happened."_

_Since Sasuke Ito is unconscious, he cannot refute or confirm the Harvest Goddess' claim. However, evidence does not deny it as a possibility.  
_

In that case, why wasn't I given back up when I sent the first Karasu to the Tenma? Is there a conspiracy? Did someone in power not want me being helped? Since I have the issues of memory loss, I don't think I'll be able to find out without anyone finding out about my memory loss.

I read the next section.

_A Cube youkai's testimony:_

_"That bastard Tengu ruined everything! When he appeared in the room, we all knew that he wasn't interested in joining us! First he killed the Black Wolf in cold blood, and then the Avatar User who tried to subdue him! Then before the rest of us can stop him, he blows the shit out of everything; either lighting people on fire or blinding them, sometimes even both! The Devil and the Daidarabotchi that was present double-teamed him and he brutally murdered them like their lives were insignificant! Hell, I thought that when Ms. Scarlet summoned her army that he'd finally be done for, but then the asshole starts vaporizing everyone like it's going out of style! He's fucking insane, like a rabid dog! That's it, someone needs to put that psychopathic, murderous, rabid dog down before he kills everyone in Gensokyo!"_

_Of course, the humans and mountain youkai seem to be taking the Cube youkai's opinion on Sasuke Ito with a grain of salt given that the same youkai was among those the humans and mountain youkai suffered atrocities from during Remilia Scarlet's rampage.  
_

I skip the next section as it is irreverent to what I want to know.

_"Yes, yes we've said that the Tengu are to not to get involved with incidents that do no directly involve them," says the Dai Tengu, "Since the guardsman's actions were a result of the Vampire attacking and getting a murder of Karasu directly involved, there will be no reason to punish him, despite what some of the other Dai Tengu believe."  
_

What? Someone that is part of the council is upset about me taking action? I skip to the next relevant section.

_In other news, several high-ranking youkai in Gensokyo have started meeting each other on the basis of coming up with a new way to resolve incidents. This is probably since this last incident has caused so much damage to Gensokyo's primary forest, as well as the aftershocks damaging the unstable parts of Gensokyo._

I read the next section.

_With the mysterious death of the current miko, Reimu Hakurei will now be the only Hakurei miko remaining._

Only one Hakurei remaining? I wonder what happened.

...

I set the several days-old newspaper down as Aya comes back into the room with a second helping of the food she made.

"Thank you," I tell her as she hands me my refilled bowl.

"Anyways, since the treaty with the Vampire in which they are brought blood in return for not attacking humans does not require them to tell us what happened, and since you're not saying anything, everyone is limited in what they can work with," she says.

That's the sad truth, no one, save the people who have reason to hate me the most, know what happened. And without my magic, I don't think I can just waltz in there and ask them to answer my questions. If they were as big of a threat as they seemed to be, they should be intelligent enough to figure out that I have amnesia and act accordingly, lying or tricking me.

And thus, no matter how much information I dig up, I will never find out the whole truth behind who Sasuke Ito was. I may have his body, his soul, his knowledge and skills, but the man everyone knew is dead. I am not him. His goals in life may not become my goals, his friends may not become my friends.

And what of him? If he found out that he was going to die and not even leave a single phantom behind, and that he would not be allowed life after death, what would he have thought? Absolute terror? And yet he died, clearly going through everything he did without stopping.

Looking from that perspective... at the thought that you could cease existence completely...

I am happy just to be alive.

...

My eyes open to the light of the sun, indicating the the change between night and day, dictated by Amaterasu as a result of her having a falling out with her husband.

Oh yeah, I need clothing.

Looking around, I quickly find my hakama, seeing that its dark color makes it stand out among everything. My loin cloth, however, takes longer to find since it is white.

I will eventually need to put all of my clothes on, my loincloth and my hakama are an absolute must right now.

It's not long after I get them both on before I hear a soft, feminine yawn behind me. I look over my should and see Aya, everything except from the collar bone and up is still under the blanket.

"You're up early," she says lazily.

"Really? The sun's rising," I point out.

"After a week of such intense and rigorous exercise, I'm too tired to care," she says before burying her face back in her pillow.

"Should I make breakfast?" I ask.

"I can't move my legs, so yes please," she answers. I nod in understanding and grab the rest of my clothes so that I can begin to dress myself. I am only half way finished, or three quarters finished if you count the lower half of my body, when Aya begins to chuckle. "You have way too much stamina."

"Really?" I ask as I look back at her. She immediately stops laughing and simply stares at me. "Is something wrong?"

"You're smiling. You never smile."

"I don't?"

"I've seen you wag your tail before, but this is the first time I've seen you smile. What's the occasion?"

_The End._

* * *

**Word from the Author:**

Thanks to Kaiser Dude, Wolfsbane706, Captain Vulcan and DokturProfesur for proof reading this chapter.

Also, thanks to those who read my fic and commented on it; whether by reviews, PMs, on the Let's Danmaku or Roleplays Rock forums, or in the chat room; you guys have made it possible for me to get this far since I actually knew that someone thought my work had value.

This story wasn't supposed to even last longer than the one chapter. But because of all of you, I have been able to see this through to the end.

Thank you, everyone.


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